It meant no more siring some yo-yo just out of college who figured a gold stripe on his sleeve made him God Almighty.... It meant eating what he wanted, sleeping with whom he wanted....It meant money, real money; being able to tell any mother's son to go to hell.... It meant being free for the first time in four lousy years.... And it meant poon tang. Not sailor poon, not some tired, beat-up prostitute you picked up in a crummy bar. Not some nervous, giggling, gum-chewing high-school kid who went with sailors because she didn't know any better. But the real stuff, high-breasted and classy who wriggled her butt right past you as if you weren't there when she spotted the uniform. They'd look at him, all right. Because he was the best kind of civilian there is-the kind with money!
CHAPTER ONE
"COME ON, SARGE. YOU DON'T have to memorize that discharge, do you? It's OK," Eddie Chase said to the Marine at the gate. Twenty-two years old, he was anxious to get past the Marine to Brooklyn, USA. Freedomsville. Tall and lean in his Navy uniform, Eddie's eyes and hair were as black as an Indian's. His face was unmarked in spite of the fact that he had won the light-heavyweight title of the Fifth Fleet, "You waited four years for this, Swabbie. You can wait a few minutes more," the gyrene said. A big, mean-looking bastard, Eddie had seen him running prisoners down from the brig a few times.
"I can wait but think of all those beautiful dolls out there. Why make it rough on them?"
"You're sure in a hurry to get to those Eight Avenue tarts. Though maybe you're more interested in that Greenwich Village stuff?"
"Naw, I leave the fruit-picking to gyrenes," Eddie said, getting a little mad. He didn't mind a little ribbing, but this clown was just a little too nasty.
"You've got a fast lip, ain't you? I get a lot of punks like you up topside in the brig. You'd be surprised how quick they learn manners after I've had them a few days. You look like the kind that starts bawling. I get a kick out of that kind."
"That's the only way you can show what a hell of a rock you are, isn't it? Pushing around a bunch of guys who can't hit back?"
"I didn't get this fighting guys who couldn't hit back," the Marine said, jerking a thumb at the ribbons on his chest.
"Korea was ten years ago. What you done recently."
"How'd you like to try me?"
"You must think I'm as dumb as you. When I get out of this damn monkey suit I'll take you on, anytime. Now give me those papers or I'll get the O.D."
"OK, but let me tell you something. You ain't going to make it, Outside. I can tell. You're going to come running back to get on the old government titty after you've knocked around trying to get a damn civilian job. And when you do, Chase, Edward, Quartermaster third, sooner or later you're going to foul up and I'm going to get ahold of you. You think of that, swabbie," the gyrene said, handing him the papers.
"What the hell you two doing there? Clear that passage way, this isn't a bar room," the O.D., a lieutenant j.g., yelled from his desk.
"Just giving this civilian directions, Sir. He wants to know how to get to Greenwich Village," the Marine answered.
"Let him find out on his own, Outside," the j.g. called. "Aye, aye, sir. You heard the lieutenant. Take off." With only his eyes showing his anger, Eddie tossed a snappy salute at the flag, hoisted the sea-bag to his shoulder, walked out and down the stairs. Damned Regular! he thought. They're all like that, hating anybody who has enough guts to get out, making "civilian" sound like a dirty word. The hell with them!
Then he was on the bottom of the steps. He forgot about the Marine, put the sea-bag on the ground and said aloud, "Civilian, a God-damn Civilian!" He looked up across the street to the Navy Yard to where he could make out the towering buildings of Manhattan, huge and bright in the clear April sun. Civilian!
It meant no more siring some yo-yo just out of college who figured a gold stripe on his sleeve put him right up there with God Almighty. It meant not having to eat what somebody else decided he should eat, or sleeping where somebody else said he should, or living and working where someone else told him to, and the brig waiting if he ever even broke wind at the wrong time.
It meant money, real money, being able to tell any mother's son in the world to go to hell, moving anywhere you damn well felt like. It meant being free for the first time in four long, lousy years. Hell, he was free, really, for the first time in his life. Because he was just a high-school kid with the draft hanging over his head when he signed up four years before. Civilian meant poon tang.
Not sailor poon, not some tired, sleazy whore you picked up in a crummy bar, or some nervous, giggling, gum-chewing high-school kid who went with sailors because she didn't know better. But the real stuff, high breasted and dressed with class, who went wriggling her butt past you as if you weren't there.
Oh, those lovely, sweet-bodied babes, unapproachable as the moon who wouldn't even spit on you if you wore a uniform and who looked for a cop if you tried picking them up! Damn them! They'd look at him now, when he got some good civvies. Because he was the best kind of civilian there is.
The kind with money.
There was over a thousand bucks in his money belt, thanks to the crap game he'd gotten into two nights before along with his buddy, Chuck Huzak, whom he'd met in the BecSta. Church had steered him to the game and he was hot as hell. When Old Chuck got some liberty, he was going to treat him to a real blast. The government had given him a train ticket back to Stub-bin's Corner up in Vermont, but Eddie couldn't see going home. Not for awhile, not with a thousand bucks on him.
Feeling the need to express his happiness, Eddie Chase, rich, young, healthy civilian, took off his blue flat hat and threw it high over the street where it ended up tumbling against the wall that surrounded the
Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Damn it, he thought, I might as well get rid of the rest of the fool outfit. He had the neckerchief off and was rolling it into a ball when his old buddy, the marine at the gate, came running down the steps.
"I was hoping you'd try and pull something like this, swabbie. I can see you need some instruction on wearing that uniform," the gyrene said, grinning. "Up yours, Mac. I'm a civilian now."
"Not while you're wearing that uniform, you ain't. Get that hat and haul your tail back inside."
"Anything you say, sargie," Eddie said, starting a straight right at his chin. The Marine brought up his hand to protect himself, leaving himself wide open for a jolting left-hook that caught him high on the cheek and knocked him back against a metal waste-paper basket. Eddie followed with a flurry of punches and both the Marine and the basket went down.
He was thinking of using his feet when the j.g. and a couple of other gyrenes came yelling down the steps. He was in luck, though; just then a taxi came down the street. Jumping in front of it, Eddie make it stop.
"Haul tail, cabbie," Eddie yelled, throwing his sea-bag into the back seat.
"I don't know, sailor. I don't want to get into any trouble," the cabbie protested.
"I ain't no sailor, I'm a civilian. Those guys are after me on their own. Move! It's worth ten to me!"
"You're on!" the driver said, meshing gears just as the j.g. came dashing down the last steps.
Thumbing his nose at the puffing officer, Eddie held this somewhat illegal salute while the cab quickly pulled away. Laughing, he fell back against the seat. That was the way he wanted to leave the Navy! His only regret was that he couldn't have clipped that damn officer. Well, maybe some other time.
"You're sure this is OK?" the cab-driver said, looking back nervously at Eddie.
"Hell, you want to see my discharge?"
"Well, OK. Where you heading, Sailor?"
"Say, didn't you hear me? I'm no sailor, I'm a civilian and don't you forget it."
"Sorry, it's that uniform, you know."
"Yeah, you're right. Tell you what, take me to a clothing store in Manhattan, some place on Fifth Avenue. I have to get some good duds."
Taking a stogie out of his inside pocket, Eddie fired up. He had started smoking cigars because he figured they made him look older and more salty, but now he really preferred them.
"Just out, eh?" The cabbie said as they went over Manhattan Bridge. "I was in myself, you know. Wish I'd stayed in, I'd be getting out in a couple of years. Cripes, that'd be something, wouldn't it? Retiring at thirty-eight."
"Yeah? You wouldn't think so if you were in. Why throw away your whole life just for a lousy pension?" Eddie demanded, irritated to hear anyone defend the Navy.
"Wait'll you've been out hunting work awhile before you say anything. Things are pretty tough now."
"Not for me. Listen, Cabbie, I'm going to make it, see. I'm going to make it big all the way, and I won't end up pushing no cab either," Eddie answered, angry at the cab-driver's lack of ambition. Hell, all you had to do was read any newspaper, look at the advertisements or watch the television program and you could see that everybody in the country was rolling in loot. Of course, guys like the cab-driver didn't have enough guts to reach out for it.
The driver lapsed into sullen silence as he drove along Fifth. Stopping at a men's clothing store at Thirty-fifth, he let Eddie out. Eddie gave him fifteen, hoisted his sea-bag to his shoulder and stood, bareheaded, in front of the store window.
The Ivy-League clothing depressed Eddie. It seemed to be as much a uniform as the one he was wearing now. There was a place a few doors away that had what he wanted and he went in. He came out an hour later wearing a pair of gray slacks, a flashy California style sport jacket and a sport shirt. The two suits he bought wouldn't be ready for a couple of days.
Taking a cab to a Railroad Express office, he shipped the sea-bag home. Then, bothered in spite of himself by the cab-driver's lack of enthusiasm over civilian life, he found a post office and sent home three hundred dollars in money orders. Relieved, he walked up Fifth towards Times Square, carrying his shaving gear and skivvies in a brown paper bag, feeling the five hundred left in his wallet aching to be spent.
Marveling at the abundance of first-class quail to be seen, Eddie took his time. There were all kinds of women striding along the glistening pavement: tall, short, slender and bulging like a bag filled with cantaloupes. Some were apparently models: long, slim, made-up creatures with arrogant, aloof eyes, hurrying quickly towards their next appointment, heels clicking like castanets and hard little buttocks twitching from side to side with each step.
Even the working girls, the secretaries, receptionists, clerks and typists were eye-catching, though they too had the city's look of don't-come-close-to-me in their eyes. Occasionally women of breath-taking beauty would pass by like beings of another planet in simple, clear-cut outfits that shrieked money. In any other city in the country all traffic would halt as they came by, smooth thighs shielding their precious treasures, breasts boldly jutting out against expensive dresses while their eyes, expressionless as a statue's, surveyed the shop windows.
Poon tang! Eddie was in the Poon capital of the world.
Lost in a sea of swirling skirts, adrift in a river of sleekly and expensively-groomed female flesh, he walked further up-town than he meant, ending at Sherman Plaza. By this time it was necessary for him to sit on one of the park benches as his admiration of the passing parade had become conspicuous.
Breaking out a Bering Plaza, he lit the fine cigar and watched a photographer take pictures of a high-cheek-boned brunette model. What a street! Why, he'd seen the actor John London standing on the corner at Fifty-seventh and he was the only one who bothered looking at him. But the broads, that was the amazing thing. He thought he had seen good-looking stuff in Times Square the few times he'd had liberty in New York. But these babes made them look sick.
This was the Street, that was for sure. If you made it here, you were on the top. It was like another world, closed to outsiders. But Eddie would crack it, he would make them notice him. At least, he would make one of those high-breasted, sweet-smelling women know who and what Eddie Chase was!
What were those wild-looking women? Rich bitches? Show people? Hundred dollar call girls? Watching one walk by, Eddie imagined the sidewalk shimmering with heated lust where she walked over it. Her hair was platinum blonde and her hips undulated as if she were forcing herself slowly against a breast-high current.
Rising, he started walking after her, but she flagged down a cab and got into it before he could catch up to her. He thought of going back to the safety of the bench but decided what the hell, why be ashamed of it?
So, itchy as hell, (he hadn't had a girl for nearly two weeks) Eddie walked down Fifth Avenue, saluting the passing beauties with his aching desire but still un-noticed by any of them. Although a queer did wink at him at Fifty-second.
That killed it and he turned west to the area he was most familiar with, Times Square. It was dingy and cheap-looking after Fifth, but he had to find a place to sleep where they wouldn't be too nosy about bringing in women.
The desk clerk at the Hotel Cross looked at him and his brown paper bag without enthusiasm, unbent enough to give him a room with bath for a week. It wasn't a great room but it did have a double bed, and that was what Eddie wanted. Slipping the bellboy a buck, he threw the bag on the bed and went downstairs.
Outside he hesitated, then headed for Trader Sorn's. He didn't want to Spend his first day as a civilian in a sailor's bar but after that stroll up Fifth, he needed a woman and fast. Besides, some of the hustlers there weren't too bad.
Trader Sorn's was a small, dimly-lit bar in the west Forties. Eddie stepped down and went through the door, stopping to let his eyes get used to the light. At four o'clock of a Thursday afternoon the place was empty, except for two women who turned to watch as he joined them at the bar.
One was a bleached blonde in her thirties, somewhat battered but still serviceable and fairly firmed up. The other was a brunette, Italian-looking and heavier, about the same age but dressed better. They sat looking at him like two cows waiting in the judges stand while he made his choice.
Deciding on the brunette, Eddie sat next to her. She had a little-not much, but a little-of the quality of the women he'd been watching on Fifth Avenue. The blonde turned back to her drink and newspaper. "What are you drinking?" Eddie asked. "Martini," she answered, hoping that would show him that she was a high class whore and not one of those ten-dollar tricks that gulped down straight booze. Sailor on leave, she decided, looking at his close-cut hair. Young, too. She regretted that, preferring older men. These young bucks expected too damn much for their money.
"Give these two ladies a drink and me a Jack Daniel's on the rocks," Eddie told the bartender, laying a ten on the bar.
"Sure thing, Sailor," Sornstein, who sometimes worked behind the bar, answered. He remembered Eddie vaguely from a few weeks before.
"No more, Buddy. Got out today," Eddie answered, gratified that someone in the city knew him.
"Yeah? Hell, that calls for a drink on the house," Sornstein said, thinking of the mustering-out pay Eddie must be carrying. If he could get the kid started, most of it could end up in the till.
"Hey, that's damn good of you. Let me pay for the ladies, though." Sure.
They all drank to his new status. Even though he knew it didn't mean anything, Eddie liked the idea.
It made him seem part of the city.
"So you just got out, huh? How long you been in?" the brunette said, taking little ladylike sips of her drink.
"Four long years. By the way, my name is Eddie."
"Hello, Eddie. I'm Maria. Gee, four years. That's a long time. What do you figure on doing now?"
"I figure on raising a little hell for awhile before I head for home. I don't know what I'll do after that."
"Well, you came to the right place to celebrate. You got to say that about the town."
"How'd you like to help me celebrate?"
"I guess I wouldn't mind."
"How much?"
"Twenty-five. Make it forty for the whole night."
Eddie knew she wasn't worth the price but still. . . . Hell, he was going to celebrate, wasn't he? like the guys said, let it all hang out. Besides, he hated bargaining. It would sound like he was cheap or something if he did.
"OK, Maria. That's higher than I thought but you look like you're worth it," he leered, putting his hand on her plump knee.
"I sure am, Eddie. Don't worry, you'll get your money's worth," she smiled. She hadn't gotten forty from an all-nighter in a couple of years now, not for a single. Coming out with forty was smart, it didn't sound nowhere as high as fifty. If she could get him pretty well soused, he wouldn't be good for more than one trick and she would be able to get a good night's rest for Friday, her busy night.
"Say, let's take off now. I got me a hotel room already."
"We better go to a place I know, Eddie. There won't be any trouble there."
"Don't worry about this place, nobody'll bother us. Come on, drink up."
"What's your rush? You're not a sailor anymore, remember? You got all night. After all, Sorn did buy you a drink," she said, disappointed at his refusal to go to the hotel where she got a kick-back.
"Yeah, OK. Another drink'll be all right. Hell, let's have another round for everybody."
When Sornstein brought back the change, he shortchanged him a dollar. Eddie didn't notice. Catching Maria's wink, the bar-owner poured a small beer for himself and leaned on the bar opposite the ex-sailor, determined not to let this pigeon escape.
"Guess you've knocked around a lot in the last couple of years, Eddie."
Naturally, Eddie had to give a run-down of the ports he'd hit and the ships he'd served on. Naturally, they had to have another drink before he finished. Naturally, in such pleasant, friendly company where everybody listened with relish to the various amusing and interesting things that had happened to him in his young life, Eddie felt himself obligated to show that was a generous as well as a courageous and intelligent young man. Naturally.
When he finally broke free of the bar, pulling Maria by one arm, it was several hours later. He was fairly well loaded and he realized, vaguely, that he had spent a little more money than he'd planned. Nearly fifty dollars more, he found out the next morning.
Now, with his arm around Maria's hefty waist, he walked on unsteady feet towards his hotel. Maria sure could hold her liquor. He felt a little ashamed of himself, being out-drunk by a woman. But after all, while coca-cola mixed with water might look something like a very poorly made Martini, it's nowhere near as alcoholic as the real thing.
Maria, good old Maria, was very eager to take him to the hotel. The cash register she used as a brain was working rapidly as she steered her well-polluted customer towards the eventual bed. The sap was carrying over four long ones! It had been some time since she'd had the opportunity to make a good score. It shouldn't be too hard, she thought. All she'd have to do would be to have him buy a pint; after a few more shots of ninety proof she could take his eye-balls away from him, let alone his wallet.
Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and chippies . . .
Though pretty well stoned, Eddie had learned a little in the four years he'd spent in the Navy. As they entered the hotel he staggered to the desk and asked for an envelope. When the clerk disdainfully gave him one, he carefully placed four hundred dollar bills in it, sealed it, signed his name on the front and told the clerk to put it into the safe.
"Very well, sir, but about the lady . . . " the clerk began, pointing to Maria's crest-fallen face.
Silencing the clerk's prepared statement about female guests in rooms with a wrinkled ten (what the hell, it was only paper) Eddie went leering towards Maria. She, good-hearted tart that she was, managed a sickly smile and suggested that they bring up a bottle. This would surely make him pass out, thus giving her a free night, anyway.
Readily assenting, he gave her ten and told her to bring it up to the room, feeling pretty certain she'd show up again. On the way up in the elevator he burst into a rendition of Barnacle Bill. The Negro who operated the elevator looked pained, so Eddie slipped him a five. The operator smiled so widely at this that Eddie let loose with a stirring effort at Old Black Joe in gratitude.
Finding his room with only a slight amount of trouble he entered, switched on the light and sat on the bed, a rich civilian in New York waiting to get laid. Just how rich, he wondered. Emptying his wallet on the bed, he counted the scattered bills three times and arrived at three different totals, ranging from thirty-nine to forty-eight dollars. (The correct total was forty-three.)
"The hell with it," he muttered, sweeping the money to the floor.
Why think of crass money at a time like this? Soon Maria would be coming, Maria of the swollen lips, of the heavy-hanging, double handful breasts and easy-spreading thighs. Good old Maria! He'd better get ready so they wouldn't waste any time.
When Maria pushed open the door, she had hopes Eddie would be passed out and she would get a free night. These hopes were dashed when she saw him standing next to the bed on unsteady feet. Maybe his legs weren't firm, but, he was naked and she could see that she would have to earn her money.
From all appearances, it might be a very long night indeed.
"Hi, Eddie. Looks like you're about ready. Hey, ready Eddie, that's what I'll call you."
"Come here, Maria. Lemme get all those clothes off you and see what those big breasts look like."
"The booze cost me ten. Feel like a drink first?"
"Hell, does it look like it's liquor I want? Old Readyeddie here's hunting for a place to roost."
"OK, OK," Maria said, putting the bottle on the nightstand.
Pulling her to him, he breathed in the aroma of mingled sweat, grime and cheap perfume that rose from her shoulder. Her breasts were like big sponges and her buttocks like soft, half-filled balloons when he grabbed them through her dress. He surprised her by kissing her on the lips, his tongue running along the ridge where teeth met gums. Locked in his embrace, she ran her hands around his smooth, hard body while he pressed against her hips with growing urgency.
"Ready, Honey?" she asked.
"That's a stupid question if I've ever heard one."
"How would you like it? Eskimo style? French Style? Greek style? Around the Great Horn? Seventy?"
"Well, I dunno, I thought we'd just play, you know?"
"OK, Eddie. I have to go to the John first."
"Naw, I got one."
"OK. Here, let me do it," she said, averting her face from his whiskey-laden breath and pulling down the zipper that freed her dark colored dress. It came off her like the outer husk of an ear of corn, leaving her in well-stuffed panties, bra and stockings. Kicking off her shoes, she carefully shook the wrinkles out of her working dress and walked to the closet with it.
Flesh hung heavy on her big-boned frame at thighs, hips, belly and breasts, but she carried it well. Walking behind her, he ran his hand down her broad back, stopping at the catch to her black bra and releasing it. The two large breasts immediately dropped forward as the bra fell to the carpet at her feet.
The brown-nubbed masses of pasty-white flesh were warm and soft in his kneading fingers as he held them from behind her back and nibbled at her pliant neck where it was joined to her shoulders. Her skin was moist and salty in his mouth. Wriggling her hips against his belly, she giggled at his tickling lips.
Hooking her thumbs into the band of her panties, she slid them down to her knees and clamped her large buttocks to his straining lust like a vise made of sponge-rubber. Sweat broke out over his hot skin as they moved about the center of the room in awkward little circles.
Stepping back, he turned her around. His fingers thrust between the swollen thighs to her rough-haired belly, he bent his head to take her right breast between his teeth. Breathing harder, she pulled his head closer against her.
"Now, Eddie? Now?"
"Yeah, yeah."
Walking her backwards to the bed, he lowered her on it and, running his hands along her warm upper thighs, rolled the black stockings down and off her heavy legs. She looked up at him with dark, troubled eyes, arms limp at her sides, nipples pointing to different sides of the room.
God, he's a good looking man, she thought.
Until then, she hadn't really looked at him. He was a mark, a customer and that was all. No chippie with any sense gets emotionally involved in what she's doing. Maria had always made it a point to imagine she was a hundred miles away someplace, while whoever was with her was heaving and straining. You simply let your body go through the motions while you made suitable comments; at the right moment you moved a certain bunch of muscles, and it was over.
That's why she always went with older men if she could. They knew what they were buying and knew that was all they were getting. But the young bucks insisted on straining for something else, trying to dominate you and make you really mean it.
No, a smart girl stayed with guys in their mid-thirties and older, guys past the stage of believing in crap like love and what a terrific thing sex was. Guys who knew the score and didn't make a big deal out of it.
Not guys like this crazy young sap Eddie with his beautiful body and movie-star looks, standing over her like a black-maned stallion ready to mount, his black eyes grinning and his . . .
The weight of him pressed her down, his hard-muscled body rubbing against her and awakening something she thought she had lost years ago. Her body was searching for him eagerly, finding him. There, he was rampaging like a bull breaking through a fence, and she was clutching him to her, moaning and talking and meaning it.
Pressing his way into her moist warm woman's body, the sweaty smell of her thick in his nostrils, her soft, white body heaving and alive beneath him, he held her tight while something great and huge grew in his belly.
"Oh, God, Eddie! Oh, oh!"
She was meeting and matching his ardent desire; and he wasn't taking a Times Square hustler in a cheap hotel, he was reaching for all women, all the women he had seen that day, secure and inviolate in their unknowing ignorance of him. He was making them know him, making them all know that Eddie Chase was alive and loose in the world, ready to open their sealed thighs. "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!"
The bed was bouncing like a trampoline, the sheets damp from the rank sweat of their coupling bodies, she squirmed under him like a frantically twisting gaffed fish while his lungs worked like bellows, making the wind come blasting out of his mouth in choking gasps.
"Oh, oh, oh," she moaned as her body ran away from her. Shuddering, she let herself go and felt him strain against her, muscles rigid and shaking. Then she began to relax.
But he didn't stop.
With redoubled force, he went at her like a berserk pile-driver, charging her with new life. Her torrid thighs opened wide, she hit his calves with her heels, urging him on.
"More, more," she moaned.
Her nails digging into his back, cradled in her working thighs, with demoniac strength he rammed into her yielding softness, sending her to a pinnacle of sensation she'd never known before, farther and farther until it broke and again she quivered lax and empty beneath him.
Soft, bubbling sounds broke through her lips as he continued his ferocious onslaught. Making her respond again to his unslaked lust, this time he carried her with him. Together they met in one last rigid embrace, every muscle knotted and hard then suddenly loosening, slack and finished.
No sound in the room except their deep breathing, he lay on his side, covering her sloping breasts with his arm, head resting on her chest just beneath her up-turned chin. Through half-closed eyes she looked up at the ceiling, a trickle of salvia running down to her chin from the corner of her smeared lips.
Raising himself, he looked down at her common, vulgar face, blotched with ruined make-up.
A whore, a Times Square hustler. That's all she was and that's all he'd had. Still he had shown her, part of the city, who and what he was.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Eddie Chase. I'm Eddie Chase, you hear? I'm the man who's going to take this town."
She didn't argue the point with him.
Getting up, he found the bottle and poured himself a stiff jolt. Though he could feel the whiskey he had drunk, his mind was cold sober. Hitching herself to the side of the bed she sat there, breasts hanging towards her bulging belly and reached for the bottle. Handing it to her, he watched her take a swallow.
"You're one hell of a man, Eddie Chase. I've never met one like you before," she said when she finished the drink.
"Yeah, I know."
"No, I mean it. You're something, I ain't kidding."
"Neither am I.'
Sitting on the chair, he sipped his drink and watched her, his black eyes without expression. "That was really something, Eddie. That was real boss," she said, smiling nervously at him. He didn't return the smile.
"Not bad, considering."
"Yeah, with all that booze in you, Jeez, most guys couldn't have done a thing."
"I didn't mean that. I meant, considering what I had to work with tonight."
"You didn't have to say that, Eddie," she said after a little pause.
"No, I didn't."
"Well, I guess I'll go to the John now," she said in a hurt voice.
"Take this with you," he said, pointing. "What? Oh, that. OK, Eddie."
He sat, working on his drink and listened to her run water in the small bathroom. When she came out, she walked, heavy-legged, to the radio and turned it on. It was tuned to WPAT and an instrumental arrangement of Kern's All the Things You Are was playing.
"If that was the only one you had, don't worry. I got myself fixed up."
"You didn't have to bother, I've had it for the night. I figure on hitting the sack now."
"Well, maybe I'd better leave it on just in case you change your mind later."
"There ain't going to be any later. I got what I want. You can take off now."
"But you said it was going to be an all-nighter."
"I changed my mind. Wouldn't worry about the money, you can have anything you can pick up off the floor."
She looked at him bitterly for a second then, getting on her hands and knees, breasts and belly pulled down to the carpet by gravity, she started gathering up the scattered bills.
"There's only forty-two dollars here. You said forty for the trick and I bought the booze. You owe me five-"
"Sue me, damn it. Take your dough, get dressed and fuck out of here. You're doing damn good and you know it."
"But, I-"
Irritated, he hit her with his open hand, just hard enough to let her know he wasn't kidding. Maria was used to getting hit; or, to put it better, she wasn't surprised when one of her customers belted her. Generally, though, it was some jerk barely able to make it who tried the rough stuff. What the hell was he mad about, she had given him a good ride for his money, hadn't she? Sullenly, she put the handful of money on the table and dressed.
"Take it easy, Maria," he said, not looking at her when she left, sorry about slapping her.
"Yeah. Goodby, Eddie."
Going to the bed, he pulled off the sheets and lay down, watching the walls tilt like the bulkheads of a sea-borne DD. He lapsed into a troubled, restless sleep that lasted until dingy, greyish city light came through the window the next morning.
The hangover wasn't too bad. He had a big headache and his stomach didn't feel too good, but breakfast and some Bromo should be able to fix that up. It was the thought of his dwindling bank-roll that really bothered him.
Jeez, he had thrown away about a full hundred just to get drunk and nail a twenty-buck-tops hustler. That nonsense would have to stop; otherwise he'd be broke in a week. It was one thing to spend cash like that when he was in the Navy, but he didn't have Uncle Sam to feed him now. Of course he still was loaded, but he'd have to play it cool until he got the hang of being a civilian.
He'd have to talk to Chuck Huzak about it when he saw him. Chuck was a savvy guy. About thirty, Chuck had stayed out for a few years after his first hitch to go to college on the GI Bill. He didn't graduate but he was an intelligent guy and should be able to give Eddie some pointers.
After showering he dressed, noticing a dollar bill on the floor when he put on his shoes. Maria must have missed it. Breakfast money. She hadn't been too bad, pretty good in fact; but he'd have been better off if he'd tried to pick up something younger up in Yorkville.
After eating in Bickford's he bought a few shirts and took them up to his room. Chuck wouldn't be at O'Leary's until six, which gave him the whole afternoon to kill. The first thing he wanted to do was call at Trader Sorn's. Sornstein had hustled him and he didn't like the idea of being hustled.
It would be a hell of a way to start out his new life.
There was a different bartender on duty but Sorn-stein was sitting in one of the back booths going over some books. Eddie slid into the seat opposite him.
"Hi, Kid, how you feeling?" Sornstein asked.
"Not too bad."
"That's good. You sure tied one on last night. Look, I'm busy right now. Have a drink on me at the bar and I'll join you later."
"Counting your money, eh? How's business?"
"Not too good. That stock market is beginning to hurt the saloon trade."
"That's too bad. You did all right on me last night, though, didn't you? I figure I must have left about fifty here."
"Yeah, you were sure enjoying yourself. What the hell, you earned it after putting in four years."
"I'm not too happy now."
"You trying to say something?" Sornstein asked, his face growing hard.
"You hustled me, last night, and I don't go for the idea."
"What? Why you cheap punk, what are you bitching about? Nobody was twisting your arm to stay here. Don't start crying to me. What do you think I'm going to do? Give you back your money?"
"That'd be nice."
"Butt out, punk. Get out of here or I'll sic the bartender on you. He loves knocking jerks like you around."
"OK, I just wanted you to know how I felt," Eddie said, getting up.
He was half up on his feet when he suddenly put both hands on the table's edge and shoved. The other edge caught Sornstein in his paunch and he bent over, the wind knocked out of him. Catching him at the back of his head with both hands, Eddie cracked his face to the table top, slid out of the booth and was out of the door by the time the bartender knew what was happening. Turning, he saw Sornstein lift his bloody face up and start yelling. Eddie hot-footed it out and lost himself in the crowd.
Grinning, he thought that civilian life wasn't starting out too badly. Out just one day, he'd gotten into two fights, had himself a woman and spent a few hundred bucks.
Yes, being a civilian wasn't bad at all.
CHAPTER TWO
CHUCK HUZAK, QUARTERMASTER SECOND, USN, had a stool next to the television set in O'Leary's. His favorite program, the commercial showing Miss Rheingold At The Beach, was on. Miss Rheingold, an impossibly happy young girl, was romping along the sands with a young man. Suddenly, the young man reached for her. She broke and ran off, with the young man in hot pursuit, his desire obvious.
He was going to rape Miss Rheingold, by God!! !
The scene quickly changed to more innocuous seaside frivolity and ended with Miss Rheingold, still irrepressibly happy, leading the other actors in song over a beach fire, obviously still a virgin. When the camera switched back to the latest losing effort of the Mets, Chuck turned his cynical face back to his beer.
Somehow the girl in the commercials kept reminding him of Kathy, the girl he'd loved when he was going to college. They both had the same youthful vitality, the same joy in being alive and young and female.
Seven years! It was hard to believe that it was so long since he'd first met Kathy. September, 'fifty five and he was twenty-two, the same age as Eddie, the kid he was supposed to meet. Recently he'd been harking back to those years frequently.
God, but he'd been excited at the idea of going to college that freshman year! Nothing to do but go to a few classes each day and pick up that long, green government check for a hundred and ten every month. Not much, but it paid your eating bills and left you enough for a couple of beer drunks every month.
What the hell else do you need?
Women? That was the best part of the deal. You didn't need to be holding heavy to operate, not if you had a good line; and that was what Chuck had always had, a good line. Those two years at Davis had been the best, the happiest of his life.
Hell, he'd even gotten a little bit of education.
He could still remember the first time he'd seen Kathy. It was in his first class in sociology and he was sitting in the back row with a few of the other vets, scuttle-butting, when Kathy walked in. All the talking died away like a movie when the sound projector stops.
Not quite eighteen, she had a gorgeous body: tall, long-legged and curved like an artist's dream. Soft, blonde hair underneath the silly little beany they made the freshman wear, unless they were vets, framed a heart-shaped face with laughing eyes and smiling lips. Fine, firm breasts that pressed against her white blouse, making the fabric tug out from where it was tucked in at her narrow waist. Wide woman's hips and buttocks filling every cubic inch of her blue bermudas.
More than her physical appearance, superb as it was, her personality captured your attention. Just by walking into the class-room she changed the whole atmosphere, brightening it until it wasn't merely a ramshackle room in the temporary Quonset huts of a still-being-built jerkwater college, but an arena dedicated to Youth and Beauty with capital letters.
Smiling, she looked around the room and her light blue eyes caught his for a second, making him catch his breath. When she sat down two seats in front of him, he knew that he had to have that girl.
The professor must have said something during that hour, but you couldn't prove it by Chuck. All he could remember was the back of her head and the soft line of her shoulders. Although he never cut a class in the course, he'd have flunked it if he hadn't put in an extra three hours of study every week. He couldn't even remember the professor's name or what he looked like.
A healthy girl, Kathy naturally appreciated all this male attention. But Chuck could see that she was more amused than excited by all the jockeying for position that went on around her. Deciding to play it cool, Chuck kept his attentions to her on an intellectual plane, talking to her of school matters when he could find her alone.
Kathy had a good mind and, rarity of rarities, had gone to college primarily to get an education. She appreciated having somebody talk to her as if she was something beside a walking pin-up. When he mentioned that he was having trouble in sociology, she volunteered to help him out.
Oh, those maddening, frustrating, wonderful nights in his apartment, studying with Kathy!
Kathy was charming, Kathy was friendly, Kathy was intelligent, Kathy was there, every beautiful inch of her, right within his arm's reach, but-
Kathy was not putting out.
Oh, they would neck a little occasionally. But as soon as he evidenced more urgent desires she would break it off, smile apologetically and go back to her dormitory. The funny part of it was that he didn't really resent that. It wasn't that she was a tease, it was just that she didn't seem to know how she affected him. Besides she'd leveled with him from the start, didn't lead him on to expect more than he was getting.
Which still didn't make him any the happier.
Chuck figured that after being exposed to the more worldly atmosphere of college her small-town moral code would be forgotten. But it didn't seem to work that way. When things got too rough he would date a more pliant, if less attractive, girl than Kathy. But he always ended up going back to her.
His first year at school went that way. However when he returned after the summer vacation he determined to make good making Kathy. Of course he wasn't the only one with this desire. Almost every male, along with the small contingent of lesbians at Davis, had the same high hopes.
By this time the held had narrowed down to only two contenders, Chuck and a hulking but good-looking football player. Most of the same admirers of Kathy were frightened off by the huge young man who enjoyed a well-earned reputation for being very rough both on and off the held. But Chuck was too far-gone to give a damn, made himself the third member of a very dangerous triangle.
They alternated dating Kathy for several weeks. In spite of the foot ban players hints and threats, Chuck began feeling that he was getting some place with her. Any woman, no matter how civilized she is, gets a kick out of knowing that two men are ready to tight for her. Finally the athlete grew impatient and did a very foolish thing. He beat the hell out of Chuck. It happened in an alley in back of the bar where the students hung out. Both of them were pretty well loaded so no permanent damage was done to Chuck, although both his eyes were swollen shut by the time the on-lookers pulled his opponent off him.
When Kathy found out she dropped the football player flat, having too much pride in herself to be nothing but a trophy for the man with the strongest right hand. Besides the big lout was starting to bore her with interminable accounts of his muscular exploits. It was also growing harder to resist Chuck's growing demands. Gradually, she became aware that her body had made a decision and soon, soon, she would have to give herself to Chuck.
Somewhat disgruntled, the football played tried to waylay him again. But Chuck had taken to carrying his old switch-blade knife, a souvenir of his juvenile delinquent days on Chicago's South Side. By slashing the shiny blade just inches short from the groin, he'd shown the other that (a) he knew how to use a knife and, (b) he was ready to use it if he had to.
Chuck was let alone after that.
The first snow of the year had blanketed the area the night it finally happened. The cold November wind whistled and made the windows shake in Chuck's apartment. He and Kathy were alone, the other vet who shared the rent with him having discreetly decided to nurse some beers in town that night.
They had been making desultory attempts at studying after eating supper but they finally gave up on the books and put them away. Without any words being spoken, Chuck knew that she was going to give in to him before the night was over. Heart beating like someone going into a brothel for the first time, he brought out the half gallon of cheap wine they'd bought the week before and put it on the table in front of the couch.
"Chuck, I don't have to go back to the dorm tonight," she said, turning the tumbler-full of wine slowly in her hands.
"How come, Kathy? I thought they were pretty strict on all-nighters," he answered, excitement welling up in him. Tonight, tonight, it was going to be tonight!
"I told them I was going to spend the night over at Professor Strang's house, baby-sitting with his kids. Strang said he'd tell them I was over there if they checked."
"I I wish you'd told me, I would have warned Joe to stay out in some hotel tonight," he said, awkwardly. Damn it, that wasn't the way he wanted to talk to her, not now! Her large, thoughtful eyes were watching him, waiting for him to say something, but all he could do was take a nervous gulp of his wine. With a shock, he saw that his hands were trembling violently. Damn it!
"Maybe we'd better forget it, Chuck."
"No, no, don't say that! It's just that I'm well, we've been going together so long, I'm a little nervous. I've . . . I've never been in love like this. You're different than any of the girls I've known before."
"I'm sorry I made you wait so long. But I had to make sure that you were the right one."
"Oh, God, Kathy," he said, letting his glass fall unheeded to the floor and bringing her strong, healthy body to him as he kissed her firm, sweet lips and breathed in the fragrance of her fine, blonde hair. Leaning her back against the arm-rest, he slid his hand underneath her blouse and fondled her magnificent, bra-covered breasts.
"Wait, wait, let me help you," she whispered excitedly, pulling the blouse over her head and unsnapping the bra. The two half-melons of rose-tipped milk-white flesh formed perfect spheres except at the nipples where they hooked up and out.
"Oh, Kathy, Kathy, they're beautiful, so beautiful!"
"Take them, Chuck, take them," she said, cupping them in her hands and letting her eyes half close.
Hands holding her smooth-fleshed back, he kissed each ruby tip in turn, first lightly then longer and harder, caressing the soft buds with his tongue until they grew hard and stiff while she writhed against the couch.
"Oh, Chuck, Chuck, it's wonderful! I shouldn't have kept you off for so long," she breathed.
Bringing his face to hers, he kissed her lips again, stroking her pliant torso. Running his tongue between her lips, he met hers for an electric moment that seemed to stretch into an eternity and embraced her, pressing her nude upper body closer to his, trying to make her one with him.
Moving away from her, he started taking off his shirt with feverishly fumbling hands, his mind empty of all save his mounting need of her ripe, young body. He was pulling off his undershirt when she, practical as most women are at such a moment, put her hand on his arm.
"Don't you thing you'd better lock the door or something in case Joe comes back?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess we'd better. I'll leave him a note or something so he doesn't come back. I'll do it later," he said, holding her soft shoulders and pulling her toward him again.
"I think you'd better do it now," she laughed, fending him off.
"OK, OK, I'll do it," he said. "Look, why don't you wait for me in the bed-room?"
"All right, Chuck," she said, rising and pulling down the zipper of her skirt. Giving a little wriggle, she sent it slipping down over her hips where it fell to the floor in a swirl of cloth. Naked save for her pink panties and ankle-length socks, she bent to the floor with an easy, fluid motion, picked up the skirt and laid it on the coffee table.
"God, Kathy, you sure aren't making it easy for me to leave," he said, stepping closer to her.
"I just want to make sure you don't take too long."
"To hell with Joe, he won't be back until the bars shut," he said, running his hand down her supple back and letting it come to rest on her rayon-covered buttocks.
"I think we'd better not take the chance. I don't feel like having him come bursting in here when we're you know, at the wrong time."
She blushed when she said that, every last inch of visible creamy white skin turning pink. He knew then that, in spite of her easy talk, she was nervous and a little scared. Somehow, that made him even more anxious to have her in bed with him where he could comfort her and calm those virgin fears.
"All right, Kathy. I'll be back in a shake of a lamb's tail," he said, squeezing her tail at the same time.
There was a pencil and paper in the kitchen; he broke the point of the pencil twice before he was able to find a ball-point pen. With it he scribbled, "Joe, GO AWAY!!!" Underlining it three times, he put it along with five dollars he had been saving for food money into an envelope and went down the stairs to the outside door at the ground level.
The cold November wind shocked him when it hit his bare chest. But he ignored it, along with surprised stare of a bundled-up passerby, and pasted the envelope to the door. Closing it, he locked it, bolted it and jammed an umbrella stand under the doorknob, just in case. The five he had put in the envelope for Joe's hotel room meant that he would be eating beans and spaghetti until the next check came. But food was far from his mind as he climbed up the steps two at a time.
At the landing he paused long enough to slip out of his shoes and take off his khakis. He thought it might be best to leave on his shorts, just in case she suddenly developed a case of cold feet; for his desire was prominent enough to shake up any bed-shy virgin. The door to the bedroom was open and he walked to it on stiff legs, every muscle taut with aching need of her.
Still in her panties, she was standing at the side of the bed facing away from him, arms shielding her breasts and head bent down. In the weak light from the living room he could see her shoulders shaking. Walking up behind her, he put his hands on her arms and brought his mouth to her averted face.
"Kathy, Kathy, it's me. Turn around."
"Oh, Chuck, it's no good."
"Why? What's the matter," he said, feeling her tremble against him with her whole body.
"I'm chicken, Chuck. I can't go through with it."
"Sure you can. You're a little nervous, but that's natural. Everything'll be all right."
"No, I'm a dud, a phony. It was one thing to talk about it in the other room, plan for it the way I did, and even take off my clothes with you watching me. But when I saw the bed I I just seemed to freeze up inside."
"It'll be OK, don't worry," he said softly, caressing her silken-smooth skin.
"What what are you going to do?" she asked in a small voice.
"Nothing, Kathy. Nothing except wait for you to come around. You're starting to already. See, you've stopped trembling."
A wise Frenchman once made a typical French remark that went something like this: "Love is nothing except the contact between epidermis." Chuck was simply applying this bit of Gallic wisdom to the situation at hand. Take a young man and a young woman, mutually attracted to each other, place them together in such a way that their bare skin is touching, and, within a short time the expected result will occur.
Naturally Chuck didn't reason it out quite as cold-bloodedly as all that. In matters involving near-naked young ladies, he preferred letting his instinct take over. His instinct told him that Kathy's nervousness was a temporary thing, and the worse thing he could do to her would be to leave.
Not that it was possible for him to do so.
Gradually his caressing hands, soft, manly voice and tender kisses had their effect. Kathy began enjoying them, even enjoy her consciousness of Chuck's manhood as he pressed against her. It seemedlikely that she would enjoy it more if she turned around.
She did and she did.
Plastered together from knees to lips, only the fabric of the shorts and panties separated them. To remedy the situation, he hooked his thumbs into her panties and pulled them down to her knees. Grasping both buttocks, he kneaded the soft, yet springy flesh until she twisted her hips, making her belly rub against his. The nipples of her breasts were firm and hard on his chest
It was time, he thought, for the Main Event.
Lifting her up the way he was holding her, he brought her to the bed and lowered her to it. Her eyes were half closed with only a sliver of white showing beneath the lids. He sent streams of kisses running from her mouth down her neck and over and up the pointed mounds of her breasts, while she twisted in pleasure.
Then down the gently curved swelling of her nearly flat stomach, down the soft, tender thighs and up again for a fleeting instant that made her gasp and the muscles of her inner leg suddenly quiver into life. "Oh, Chuck!"
Joining her on the bed, he put his one arm under her head, turning it to him and with the other resumed his exploration of her aroused body. Putting his rambling fingers between her thighs he squeezed making her gasp.
"Oh, oh Chuck, I'm ready!"
"So am I, Baby, so am I."
Then he was up and over Kathy, a wild new Kathy he had never known, hard and hurting but both joying in the pain because of what it meant. All barriers fell before their furious need of each other and he felt himself racing to a furious, short conclusion. He tried to hold back but he couldn't; caught in a torrent of gushing sensuality, he grabbed her tightly around the torso and gave vent to his too-long postponed need.
A sick emptiness welled up in him and he thought he had failed her, failed her when she had needed him most; but he hadn't, for his body was still alive.
With renewed zeal he thrust forth ardently while she moaned and jerked her head from side to side with each movement. Legs spread wide, nails scratching and clawing at him, she met each heaving motion. Loins meshed together, joined in frenzied lust and love, locked together in ever-increasing waves of frantic desire through the whole spectrum of fleshy sensations, they welded themselves together.
Her moist, sweating skin was slippery and smooth, her inarticulate cries muted in his ears as he triumphantly drove on to full possession of her, again and again until he felt her belly throb convulsively and he was part of her, his arms straining around her chest, the salty taste of her taut neck on his tongue and her damp, blonde hair sticking to his forehead.
For a long moment they met, hearts beating wild as if they were trying to break out of their rib-cages. Then the bed stopped creaking and they lay quietly.
"Kathy, Kathy, I love you," he said, hunching himself on his elbows, her calm face framed between his arms.
"I I didn't think it would be like this. It was wonderful!"
"I knew it would be this way, I knew it from the first time I saw you."
"I was a fool, a damn fool to make you wait so long! We should have done it long ago. It's just that it seemed so wrong to me, before. It can't be wrong, though, can it? Nothing that feels so good can be wrong."
"That's right, Kathy."
"When I think how silly I acted before! Tell me, Chuck, what would you have done if I'd decided to go back to the dorm just before we got in bed?"
"I I don't know."
"Would you have made me do it? Would you have raped me?"
"I guess so, Kathy. At that stage of the game, well, I'd have had to take you."
"Good, I'm glad to hear you say that."
Later, still naked, they went into the living room and listened to some records. He couldn't keep his eyes off her gorgeous body. Filling the bath-tub half full with warm water, they got into it, she stretched out on her back over him, her breasts breaking through the brimming surface of the water like twin islands, her ankles resting on the curved white porcelain edge of the tub.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, massaging her thighs underneath the water.
"No, not now."
"That's good. You smell nice when you're wet, you know? Wet blondes have always been my weakness."
"I'll have to remember that," she laughed. Outside the black window they could hear snowflakes hitting against the pane as the wind grew stronger. "Poor Joe. What a miserable time to chase him out of his own apartment. Do you think he'll mind?"
"Who, Joe? He'll be OK, I gave him five for a hotel room. You don't have to worry about him talking to anybody about us, either. Joe knows when to keep his mouth shut."
"I don't care, let him talk if he wants to. I want the whole world to know about us."
"Well, we'd better play it cool for awhile. That Strang is the guy I don't get. How come you went to him for your alibi?"
"Well, he just seemed to be the only one in the faculty who'd do anything like that. He's a sarcastic man, but something like what we're doing appeals to his sense of humor or something because it's against the school rules."
"Maybe I'll drop in and see that guy tomorrow. The hell with him now. You know, your breasts look great from this angle."
"I've noticed that you've been eyeing them," she giggled.
"You have, have you? Well, I can't do much the way we are now, you know."
"What do you suggest?"
"Reach down and pull out the plug and we'll let out a little water. Then we'll change positions and we'll see what happens."
"Sounds like fun."
It was, although they made such big waves that the floor was flooded by the time they were through. They stayed up until three, playing Joe's phonograph and talking and making love again. Joe came in around eleven; Kathy put on one of Chuck's bathrobes and fixed them all a breakfast of ham and eggs. Then they dressed and walked the three blocks to school hand in hand, his chest swelling with pride at having such a beautiful woman.
After dropping Kathy off at her class, he walked over to Professor Strang's office. Strang was one of the mavericks who occasionally show up on even the best-regulated faculty. With his brilliant mind, caustic tongue and jeering attitude towards the entire universe, he was the most admired, most disliked and most feared professor at the college.
"Well, well, here is the young hero. Toothsome wench, wasn't she?" he asked, leaning his limber, lanky frame back in his chair and regarding Chuck with his usual mocking smile.
"I thought so," Chuck replied, lighting a cigarette and throwing the match into the ash tray on Strang's desk. "Why'd you do it?"
"You mean concocting that story for the administration? A number of reasons. One of them was that I felt I would be remiss in my duties as an educator if I had let such a succulent morsel as Kathy go through Davis with her virginity intact. Experience, in spite of what those learned fools, my colleagues, say, is still an excellent teacher. I'd hoped to give her the benefit of my personal attention, you know, but foolish young thing that she is, she preferred a young lout like you for the initial event."
"So you had the yen for her yourself. I kind of figured that. I still don't see why you did it. You never seemed to like me that much. You could get into trouble if this ever comes out, you know."
"On the contrary, Mr. Huzak, I've always had the highest regard for you. You're one of the few students here who has any glimmering of intelligence. However you are also a hopeless romantic. There's only one way to cure a romantic and that's by giving him what he wants. Tell me, do you two plan to get married?"
"Yes, we do."
"The typical romantic response. The girl is beautiful, enjoyable in bed and seemingly pleasant in personality. Therefore, why not secure her to you for all time? Unfortunately, the bloom soon wears off the rose, so to speak. Then the romantic turns into an unhappy, but wise man."
"Such as yourself?"
"Precisely."
"No, I don't think it's going to work out that way. Thanks for the help, anyway," Chuck replied, leaving the office.
The next several months were a riot of frantic coupling every chance Kathy and Chuck had. She was a woman transformed after that first night. Several times a night, once even between classes when they had a free hour, they would hurry to the apartment, oblivious to the looks of the neighbors and climb up the steps, shedding clothing on the way to the bedroom.
Chuck could see that Joe was getting annoyed. It wasn't doing him any good to know that Chuck was getting his. Kathy didn't make things any easier by bitching all the time about how sloppy the place was. The apartment was the most convenient place, though, since he damn well couldn't afford motel rates on one-ten a month.
She was anxious to get married as soon as possible but he didn't see how they would manage it. The only income he had was from the Bill and she was determined to get a degree herself. The idea of her parents supporting her while she went to school after they got married didn't appeal to him. Finally they decided to set the date late in June. He would try to pull his marks up enough so he would be able to hit the school for a loan. When they graduated he would be up to his neck in debt, but there didn't seem to be any way to avoid that.
By the time the spring semester had started, most of the school was aware that they were close to living with each other. But nobody in the administration bothered them. Joe finally got disgusted with feeling like an intruder in his own pad and moved out. Chuck had a hell of a time paying the full rent by himself, but Kathy was overjoyed at the prospect of having a house for herself.
In a few days she had the house so clean it looked like a different establishment. Everything was in its place and clean. Chuck felt as if he were living in some kind of model apartment. If he forgot himself by dashing cigarette ashes onto the rug, or left his dirty laundry piled up in a corner the way he used to, she would raise holy hell.
They were together almost constantly from their morning classes until eight thirty, when she would catch the bus back to the dorm. They ate all then-meals, which she insisted on cooking, in the apartment. Chuck began thinking back with nostalgia to the food he'd eaten in the Navy. After supper they would usually repair to the bedroom for an hour's now-routine sex.
Finished, they would go back in the living room and hit the books until it was time for her to leave. Chuck began to notice that he was looking forward to putting her on the bus and then taking his carefully-hoarded thirty cents to a bar, where he would nurse two beers as long as possible.
The honeymoon was over, and he wasn't even married yet!
In April, right around bock-beer time and just after the trout season opened, things came to a head. April, the month poets love to sing about when bare trees burst into green leaves and laughing young girls are merrily tumbled in fragrant meadows. April, when Chuck Huzak began thinking that maybe Professor Strang was right after all.
The argument started over Chuck's major. A degree in English Literature is almost useless unless you plan to teach, and it isn't worth a hell of lot then, either. Chuck knew that, but he didn't particularly give a damn. Completely devoid of ambition, he planned to hold various jobs of an undistinguished nature in different parts of the country, moving on when things got too boring. like all English Lit majors, he had a hankering to try writing someday, but he had too much sense to think he could make a living that way.
Kathy wasn't too enthused over his proposed gypsy-like existence. like all women, she saw education in domestic terms. A man went to college to get a degree so he could get a good job. A good job was one that was steady, secure and fairly well-paying. With the money the man made from his job he supported a wife, two point five children, a mortgage on a house in the suburbs and the payments on a late-model car. If the guy wasn't lazy eventually he would get a bigger house, a bigger car and a coronary.
Chuck was willing enough to switch to something slightly more practical such as Political Science or even sociology, but she was set on him going all the way to business administration. And he just couldn't buy that. They had a good, loud argument which ended with her calling him a selfish, immature GI ass. He countered with "selfish, spoiled, bourgeois brat." She answered this by breaking into tears. He finished it by walking out.
The monthly check had come in a few days before so he enjoyed the rare sensation of money in his pocket. Through streets bright with early spring sun and children's laughter he walked a straight course to the nearest bar, the usual gambit of American men after an argument with their women.
The nearest bar was an elaborate place called the "Dubonnet", pronounced with final't' by local inhabitants, a place much too expensive for college students. Hell, he thought, he still had ninety bucks in his pocket. Of course after he paid the rent and bought some groceries, he'd be broke again. But he'd worry about that when the time came.
The frozen-faced bartender condescended to sell him a bottle of bock for double its usual price, but it tasted so good he felt no regrets. There were several button-down types sitting near him having an argument over who was the most fouled-up. They were all under thirty and half-shot.
The first one pointed out that not only had his wife gained thirty five pounds since he married her, she had recently gone on a screwy diet of hard-boiled eggs and cottage cheese and was insisting that he join her in it.
The second replied that the first didn't know what trouble was. For five years he had been worming his way up, hoping to latch on to the head cost analyst's job; and only yesterday he'd found out that the boss' son, who had majored in cost analyzing, was due to graduate in June.
The last one topped them all. Not only was his mother-in-law living with them permanently now, not only had his car developed rust spots three months after he bought it, but his lawn was coming up ninety percent crab-grass.
Chuck drank two more bottles of bock as he listened to their talk. In a few years, the way things were going, he'd be in the same boat with these clowns. Apparently they wearied of telling each other about their troubles for they lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Then they started in on a new topic.
Old service stories.
Now the competition was to find out who'd thrown the wildest and longest drunks, laid the most girls, gotten into the toughest fights and served at the most miserable stations. As the lies grew thicker and the laughs louder, their eyes became sadder and sadder as if they could visualize how they would eventually wind up.
Middle-aged men drearily repeating the same old stories over and over again.
They didn't realize it yet, Chuck thought, but the years they'd spent in the service were probably the happiest that they would ever know. Even the ones who'd seen action at least had something real, something worth-while to fear.
What did they have to fear now? Their bosses? The payments on their cars? Their neighbors? Their wives?
Ordering another beer, he drank it slowly and watched them get more and more sloppy-drunk. They were drunk enough now to speak their minds and they cursed their jobs, their homes and their wives. When he finished his beer Chuck got up, walked out and caught a bus to the nearby city.
It was five o'clock and they were getting ready to close the post office. The chief who was in charge of recruiting was getting ready to lock up when Chuck came in and signed up for four years. He stayed at a hotel for a week while his papers were going through the proper channels, was sent to New York for his physical and finally sworn in. That was five years ago and he hadn't seen Kathy since, although Joe had written him that she stayed in school and graduated after he left.
CHAPTER THREE
CHUCK LOOKED UP AND SAW HIMSELF in the mirror in back of O'Leary's Bar. He saw a medium-sized, nondescript sailor with two red hash-marks on his arm. Getting up, he moved a few seats further down the line where he couldn't see the mirror.
Five years since he had run off and he still didn't know whether or not he'd made the right move. Every once in awhile after a few beers it would all come back to him, hitting him like a Mack Truck. He would feel like going out and hunting up Kathy and begging her to take him back. He should never have run off on her, not that way anyhow, without talking it over with her.
Still the kind of life she wanted just wasn't for him. She was better off without him. By now she must be married and settled down, maybe even with kids. It was hard for him to think of her that way. God, those first few months!
A year back he'd done a damn fool thing on his leave. Taking a train back to Davis, he walked over to the street where the apartment had been. The school had moved its campus and the old Quonset huts were torn down, leaving a blank, empty lot where they'd been. The lights in the apartment were out and he stood across the street, watching and remembering. Then the lights in the kitchen flashed on and he saw a young woman, wearing a robe, looking back and smiling at somebody in the living room. Wheeling around, he walked quickly back to the main street and took a cab to the school.
His intention was to look up Strang. He wasn't certain whether he wanted to talk to him or slug him, but Strang was one of the few people in the world who might understand why he'd done what he did. However Strang too had left Davis.
It seemed that the president of the college found out that Strang was giving his (the prexy's) seventeen year old daughter an extra-curricular course in Advanced Sexuality the previous spring and had had him expelled from the faculty. When his long-suffering wife finally left everybody who had been antagonized by Strang which meant the entire faculty and most of the student body rejoiced in his downfall.
However he'd disappointed them by landing on his feet, getting a job at three times his professorial salary where his absolute contempt for the human race was an asset, not a liability.
He was now writing television copy on Madison Avenue.
Ordering another beer Chuck grinned, thinking of
Strang. He'd have to look him up sometime. Then Eddie Chase came into the bar. Spotting Chuck, he walked over to him.
"Hi, civilian! How do you like being out?" Chuck asked.
"Hello, Chuck. What are you wearing that monkey suit for? I told you I'd treat you to a real high class binge, didn't I?"
"This outfit is OK with me."
"Hell, we're not cruising for Eighth Avenue stuff now. What are you drinking that beer for? Hey, bartender, let's have a couple shots of bourbon here!"
"You're in a hurry, eh, Eddie? What have you been doing with yourself since yesterday? Get laid?"
"Sure did."
"That's the way to start off. Where'd you get it?"
"Oh, just some pig I picked up in Trader Sorn's. I'll have to keep away from that neighborhood, by the way. I smashed old Sorn up a little bit this morning."
"You did? What for?"
"Well, I got drunk there last night, see, and I spent something like fifty-odd dollars. Now when you're a sailor you're more or less expected to do something like that. But I'm a civilian now and I can't see letting anybody pull something like that on me. At least, not hustling me and then laughing about it."
"So you smashed up Sornstein. What else have you been doing with your time?"
"Well, I had a little fracas at the gate over at the RecSta with a gyrene."
"Hell, was that you? I should have known! You got the whole place in an uproar. Let me buy you a drink for that. I hear that Marine is a mean bastard when they have him running the brig."
"I'm only sorry I didn't use my feet on him. I wish I could have clipped that officer, too," Eddie said, beaming with pride and lighting a cigar.
"Down she goes, Eddie," Chuck said after they downed a round of Old Overholt. "Say, I'm going to have to take it easy, drinking bonded stuff on top of beer. You're off to one hell of a start, Eddie. Two fights, one woman and a drunk in your first day. You might just be tough enough to make it as a civilian."
"You ain't seen anything yet. I'm just getting started."
"What do you figure on doing?"
"Oh, I guess I'll stick around New York for a couple of weeks then visit my folks. I'm not too certain about what I'll do after that. I was hoping you'd give me some leads."
"Who, me? I'm the last person in the world to ask for advice on how to make out as a civilian."
"Yeah, but you were out for a couple of years and you did go to school. You ought to know something about what the score is. How come you didn't stay out, Chuck? I don't see a smart guy like you staying in the Navy."
"That's a long story, Eddie. I came back because I didn't like what I saw myself getting into. Tell me, what do you figure a guy wants when he's a civilian?
I mean a college graduate like I was trying to be."
"That's easy. Money."
"You're half right. Money and what they call status. A guy'll spend his life brown-nosing and slaving away on a job he hates, hoping that his neighbors'll be impressed with his car and his house and his wife. Now I, as a sailor, carry all my status on my right arm. Anybody can take a look and see where I stand. In about five or six years, I should make chief. That'll be enough status for me."
"I just don't see it, Chuck. You put your whole life in the Navy and what do you have when it's over?"
"A pension when I'm forty. Then off to Mexico. That's the country to go to. They know what death is down there and they know how to live, too. Or maybe I'll go back to college. What the hell, by that time I should be old enough to get something out of it."
"That ain't for me, Chuck. I got more ambition than that," Eddie said, shaking his sharp-featured face over his drink.
"Sure, I'm not saying you should stay in. You know what you ought to do, Eddie? Try going to college yourself for awhile."
"Go to college? Are you kidding? I'm not interested in any of that stuff. Besides, I barely got out of high school."
"That doesn't matter, there's plenty of small schools around that'll take just about anybody who has the tuition money."
"But hell, I just got through wasting four years. I want to make me some loot now, not pinch pennies for another four years."
"Try it just for a semester or so. That way you'll have some idea of how a college grad acts. That'll come in handy if you ever have to try and con somebody for a good job."
"Naw, I don't see that. I want to start making money now, while I'm young enough to enjoy it."
"Suit yourself. What the hell, you can worry about what you're going to do when your stake runs out. That's what most guys do when they get discharged. You want to hang around here or go someplace else? I'm kind of sick of Eighth Avenue, myself."
"Same here. Td like to score with a broad that ain't selling for a change. How about Yorkville?"
"That sounds good. Even if we don't connect, well be able to drink some good beer. Hey, wait a second! I just thought of a guy I know who might be in town. If I can get hold of him, we'll have a time you won't forget."
"Yeah? Who's that?"
"A crazy professor I used to know at Davis. He got canned for slipping it to the president's daughter."
"No kidding? Think he'll know where there's some women?"
"This guy always knows where there's women."
Finding the Manhattan Directory next to the telephone booth, Chuck searched through it until he found Harold Romolus Strang, Jr. of fifty-five Erwin Street. Erwin was in Greenwich Village. It figured.
Dialing the number, he heard it ring four times, then Strang's voice precise and clear.
"Professor Strang speaking. Yes?"
Chuck hung up the receiver. It would do Strang good to sweat out having an angry husband or father on his trail. Damn it, but it would be good, seeing that snotty bastard again. Say what you would about Strang, he was a hell of an interesting guy. In the back of Chuck's mind was finding out if Strang knew where Kathy was now.
"Your boy in?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah. Come on, we'll hop a cab down to his place."
"OK, Chuck. Where's he at."
"Down the Village."
"The Village? Hey, that's Queersville, ain't it? I don't know about you, Chuck, but I'm looking for broads tonight."
"Don't sweat it, there's plenty of good looking heads down there. Straight stuff, too. You just have to put on a little if you want to connect."
"OK, I'll give it a try," Eddie said, following him out into the noisy, bright-lit street. "What do you mean by putting on? Should I make like I'm some kind of executive or something?"
"Hell, no. Push the culture bit. Say that you're a sculptor. That way nobody can ask you for a sample of your work. If anyone says anything about sculpture, just tell them they don't know what the hell they're talking about. They'll figure you're a genius like themselves."
"Sculpture? What the hell do I know about that?"
"OK, then tell them you're a pro fighter. Say you're a light-heavy just in from the west coast. Those little college girls in the Village will eat that right up."
"They will, huh?"
"Sure. Say, there's a racket you can think about, fighting. You were pretty good when you fought in the Navy, weren't you?"
"Fighting? There's no money in it now unless you've got an in. Besides, I'm not good enough to go pro."
They flagged a cab and went down through the garish streets. They passed Penn Station, and soon were in the twisted, winding streets of the Village. Tourists, hop-heads, beatniks, queers, dikes, students, Negroes, Puerto Ricans, would-be artists and people who just lived there walked around the narrow streets in clusters, enjoying the night air.
Fifty-five Erwin was a tired-looking tenement in the middle of a dingy, crooked street. Five stories high, it seemed to sag against the buildings on each side. Garbage cans were lined up in a row in front of the entrance.
"I thought you said this Professor Strang was loaded," Eddie said as they left the cab.
"That's what I heard. Don't let the outside fool you, some of these tenements are in good shape inside."
As they walked through the vestibule they found it as unimpressive as the exterior. There was one light which cast dim rays over a double row of mailboxes, and that was all. The unwashed stairs led up into pitch blackness. When Chuck examined the mailboxes to see if he could find Strang's name listed, a large, fat roach waddled hurriedly over the blank name-plates.
"You say this guy is doing good? I'd hate to see where he'd be living if he was doing bad," Eddie said.
"I guess old Strang has slipped a little, though it would be just like him to live in a dump like this even if he was holding heavy. He's a perverse bastard. Come on, we'll have to check every damn door in the halls."
"Look, why don't we just go to some bar and call him again. This place gives me the creeps."
"No, I want to see him. I hope he is on the skids, I'll get a kick out of riding him. If we meet him in a bar he'd probably try and put on a. routine about how good he's making out, but in this hole he'll have to admit that he's a flop."
Reluctantly Eddie followed him up the dark stairs. This character Chuck was so eager to see sounded like a real creep and Eddie didn't feel like wasting the evening yakking to some broken-down ass. The air was fetid and close. Lighting a match on the first landing, Chuck examined the doors, looking for name-plates, but they were all blank. A sliver of light showed at the bottom of one of the doors. First he tried ringing the door-bell, then rapped loudly against the frame when the bell remained silent.
Soft footsteps hurried to unlock the door. The match Chuck was holding burned down to his fingertips, and cursing he let it drop down to the floor. They heard the door unlocked and blinding white light flooded the hall when it opened about a foot, held back by a chain. A young woman's face looked questioningly at them over the links.
"Yes? What is it you want?" she asked. As their eyes grew accustomed to the light, they could see that she was a striking brunette barely out of her teens. A paint-daubed man's blue work shirt pulled over dungarees that were rolled up over her calves showed that she was a painter.
"I'm looking for Professor Strang's apartment. I understand he's someplace in this building," Chuck said.
"Oh, you must be going to that party he's giving. He's up on the top floor."
"OK, thanks," Chuck said, starting to go. Eddie kicked him in his shins.
"Say, if there's a party, how about coming up with us?" Eddie asked, moving forward. This kid looked damn good to him and if she was living in Greenwich Village she must go for that free love business.
"I was up there earlier but I had to come back and go to work. Besides, I really don't care much for Strang or the crowd that hangs around him."
"I don't blame you, I don't care too much for him myself," Chuck said. "It's just that I used to be a student of his and I'd like to see how he's doing."
"You were a student of his? Then that story about his being a college professor is true! I always thought he was lying when he talked about it."
"No, Strang really was a college professor. A pretty good one, too, except he was so sarcastic."
"Well, that's one mannerism he hasn't bothered to change," she said with a little laugh.
"Look, I'm not interested in this Strang character. He's Chuck's friend, not mine," Eddie said. "How about letting me stay here while he goes up and yaks with him about old school days? I've never seen a real artist working. That's what you are, aren't you?"
The woman looked at him steadily for a moment, then released the chain and opened the door.
"All right, you can come in if you want to. But remember what I said, I'm working now."
"Don't worry, I won't disturb you. I'll be down here, Chuck," Eddie said, winking and walking into the bright apartment.
"OK, I'll see you later," Chuck replied, turning and climbing the stairs.
The apartment consisted of one large room and was bare of furnishings except for an army cot, tiny refrigerator and stove along with several chairs and a table. Two fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, bouncing eye-blurring brilliant illumination off the white-washed walls. An easel holding a sketching pad stood under the lights, facing a wooden box with a plaster cast of a man's hand. Finished drawings, charcoal sketches, paper-back books piled in foot-high stacks and framed canvases cluttered up the room.
"Quite a lay-out," Eddie said.
"It's not too bad except it's noisy as hell when the people next door start fighting," she said, locking the door. He hadn't been able to get a good look at her figure outside, but he could see now that it was more than adequate. Even in her unflattering outfit, she had an attractive shape that would have been a credit to a chorus girl, though she seemed a little thin.
"I'm Eddie Chase, by the way."
"Hello, Eddie. I'm Selma. Grab a seat somewhere if you can find one. Do you drink wine? You'd better, that's all I have in the place," she said, taking a nearly empty bottle of cheap wine out of the refrigerator.
"That'll do though bourbon's my real drink. How about me picking up a bottle of Old Overholt downstairs?" Eddie asked, wandering around and looking at the sketches. Things were sure going smoothly. It looked as if it would be easy sailing.
"Bourbon! Mmmmm. Not right now, though. I still have to do some work."
"Work? Oh, you mean drawing."
"Oh, I suppose you don't consider painting work?" she asked, her tone of voice lowering the temperature considerably.
"Now, Selma, I didn't mean that. It's just that I'm not used to beatniks like you and things like this," he said, using the one word that was certain to antagonize her.
"Beatnik! Why you thick-headed, illiterate, conceited baboon! I let you come into my apartment and you have the brass-bound gall to call me that!" she shouted, her blue eyes shooting off sparks. She went to the door and opened it.
"Come on now, Honey. What the hell are you getting so mad about? Hell, you are a beatnik, ain't you?" Eddie asked, honestly bewildered by her anger.
"Get out, you thick-skulled lout! Get out of here before I let loose a scream that'll bring every cop in New York," she yelled, holding the door open.
"Now wait a second!"
"Get out!"
"No. Not until you tell me what I've done," Eddie said, folding his arms across his chest and watching her. Lordy, he thought, she sure was a spitfire!
"What you've done! Say, you're not kidding, are you? You honestly think that anyone who tries to be an artist is nothing but a beatnik, don't you?"
"Well, I've never given it much thought but I guess that's about it, Selma. I honestly don't know why you're so mad."
"Because I'm not a beatnik! Because I'm an artist. Maybe not a good artist, not yet, anyway. At least I'm willing to work at it, and that's more than those phony beatniks will do! Come over here and take a look at my stuff, then see if you want to call me a beatnik." She closed the door and walking over to where her drawings and paintings were stacked.
Silently handing him a sheath of nude drawings, she leaned against the wall, feeling vulnerable as only an artist can who is watching somebody examine his creation. Though not first rate, the sketches showed a great deal of promise. She had a good sense of line but her knowledge of anatomy was still rudimentary. Eddie, who wasn't used to seeing the human figure portrayed so graphically, was impressed although he noticed several things that seemed wrong.
"Say, these are pretty good. Who's the guy?" he asked.
"The model? I don't know, I drew those at the League. That's the school I went to."
"A regular school, eh? He's built pretty good but he looks like he'd be too slow in a fight. More of a wrestler than a boxer. The ones of the woman look better to me. See, you got his shoulder wrong somehow."
"That's pretty noticeable, isn't it? Damn it, I wish I could have kept going to school! I need a lot more work in anatomy. See, you can tell by this drawing I made yesterday."
Rummaging through a pile of finished sketches, she brought out a drawing of a drunken derelict lying against an alley way in a dirty puddle of his own making. An over-turned garbage can was behind him and his sunken-eyed, scrawny face was turned up.
"Whew! That's ugly," Eddie said.
"It was meant to be. The trouble is, he looks just like a pile of dirty clothes. I wanted to suggest, in the drawing, that he was still at least part of a man. Somehow, I wasn't able to do that."
"Yeah, I see what you mean. Let me see some of your paintings."
Most of her paintings were mediocre student efforts but there was one that seized his attention, a street scene showing a bunch of people hurrying through the city among dark, glowering buildings that loomed over their heads. The figures were distorted, their down-turned eyes big and frightened, each separated from the others and alone in the crowd.
"This one, I don't know, I don't think people are like that," Eddie said, scratching his black thatch.
"It is to some people. Wait until you've been around this town a little longer, you'll see."
"Well, Selma, I guess I owe you an apology. You're not a beatnik. I'm sorry I called you one."
"That's all right, I'm sorry I flew off the handle that way. It's just that, well, it's annoying to throw up everything and work like a slave and then have people call you a dilettante."
"Then we're friends?"
"Yes, Eddie, we're friends. Sit down and let me pour you some wine," she said, picking up the jug.
"I'm still a little confused about beatniks," Eddie said, holding out his glass.
"Oh, I guess they're all right, but the ones I've met are more interested in just talking about what they're going to do," she said, taking a seat on a stack of magazines.
"Is that all you do? Paint, I mean? Have you sold anything yet?"
"That's a question you shouldn't ask around the Village, Eddie," she said, laughing. "No, I get a little money from home once in awhile and I do a little modeling when I get the chance. I have an application in at the League."
"Yeah? Maybe I'll sign up for one of their courses."
"You'd be disappointed if you did, Eddie. It's really pretty stale unless you're serious about drawing."
"I don't think so. Hey, if you're modeling like that, why don't you hook up with one of those men's magazines? That ought to be an easy way to make a buck."
"You mean like the center page in Revel? That's a last resort, I just don't like the idea. Besides, you have to have an in with somebody to get good prices."
The wine was sour in his throat as Eddie tossed it down. So this was what they called Bohemia. It was all right with him. That Bohemian just across the table had what seemed to be a very nice pair. All through their conversation, he'd watched them dip and bob with every motion she made. No bra, either. The nipples made little points through the fabric of her shirt. They were nice little handfuls, all right. She knew where he was looking, too.
"You're a funny kind for the Village, Eddie. You look too normal," she said, looking up at him.
"I've never come down here before. All I ever heard about it was that it's loaded with queers and I don't go for those jerks."
"Queers are a big thing here in the Village. Anything that's weird and off-beat is."
"If I knew there were sharp-looking babes like you around here, I'd have come down long ago."
"You're not a bad guy, Eddie, even if you are a little square. I don't mind squares, though. I'm more than a little fed up with the hipsters and would-be hipsters who infest this area. It's good to be with somebody for a change who isn't always putting it on about Life and Art and Zen and all the rest of it. You don't dig that intellectual stuff, do you, Eddie?"
"You mean reading and things like that? Naw, I just take things as they come."
"That's the best way. How do you take me, Eddie? Do you like me?"
"Hell, yes."
"What is it you like about me, Eddie? I'd like to hear you say it. I miss hearing men saying nice things to me."
"I like the way you look, Selma. The way you fill up those pants and the way you bulge out that shirt. Your face, I like that, too. Black hair and eyes, the same as me. I like being able to talk like this to you just after we've met."
"We're alike, Eddie. We're both the same way. When we see something we want, we're not afraid to go for it. Eddie, how'd you like to spend the night here with me?" she asked, her serious dark eyes looking directly at him.
Eddie let his wide grin answer her. Damn it, he thought, this was A-OK! Just meet a girl, and a few minutes later you've scored with her. No fiddling around, either. Not a beat-up tart like what's-her-name the other night, but a real good-looking babe with firm young breastworks. Leaning over, he put his hand along her smooth cheek and caressed it.
"I want you too, Eddie, but it'll cost you something," she said.
Eddie felt as if he had been doused with cold water. She was just another chippie, selling it. Somehow, he hadn't thought of her that way. Still, chippie or not, she was a good-looking head. If he had to pay to get that hot little body under him, it'd be money well spent. He slid his hand down to her shoulder.
"How much?" he asked.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not a whore and it isn't money that I'm asking you for."
"No? What do you want, then."
"I want you to model for me."
"What?"
"I told you I need more work in male anatomy, and you've got a good build for a model. You're some kind of an athlete, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I've done a little boxing."
"I thought so, I can see that your nose has been broken. Where'd you fight?"
"In the Navy. I just got out. I don't know, this modeling, I've never done it before," he said, scratching his head again.
"There's nothing to it. All you have to do is hold a pose while I sketch. Unless you're inhibited or something?"
"No, I guess I'm not. OK, I'm game. Make sure that door's locked, though. I'd look stupid as hell if Chuck should come walking in here."
"Don't worry about it. Just undress and stand over there by the window. You can pull down the shade if you want to although most of the people in this neighborhood don't bother."
Feeling kind of foolish, Eddie stripped. Taking a cigar out of his shirt pocket, he fired up and walked over to the wall. Lord! If the guys on the Amagansett ever saw him now, he'd never live it down!
"OK if I smoke?"
"Sure, but there's something about a naked man smoking a cigar that's incongruous," she said, amused.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Just strike a few poses and hold them for a minute or two while I get warmed up. Make believe you're punching a bag or something," she said, setting a pad of newsprint on the easel.
This is a hell of a silly situation to get myself into, Eddie thought, assuming a stance. But what the hell, it figured to be worth it. He might have been an ancient gladiator except for the fuming cigar jutting up out of his mouth.
"That's good, hold it," Selma said, sketching in short, swift strokes.
Eddie was a good model, his thin skin barely shrouded his long muscles. But Selma found she wasn't doing as well as she could. It was different in school. The male models wore jock straps for one thing. For another, she'd never drawn a man just before he was going to climb into bed with her.
It was disconcerting.
For both of them, it turned out. Eddie quite obviously had the same thoughts as she. Try as she would to concentrate on his arms or legs, her eyes kept veering back to that area of his body she soon would be most concerned with.
The pose was really ridiculous, she decided. He looked like a cigar-smoking bare-bottomed boxer who couldn't decide whether he was going to fight or make love.
"Maybe you'd better turn around the other way," she said. He did and for five minutes there was no sound except the scratching of the charcoal.
"Hey, how long are you going to take? I can't keep this up for much longer," he said.
"If the pose is too hard for you, try another one."
"It ain't the pose I'm talking about."
Her drawing stank, she saw. The hell with it, they could take another try at it tomorrow morning. He couldn't see her so she decided to kid around with him.
Loosening her dungarees, she let them slide over her bare hips and stepped out of them. The shirt next joined them on the floor. Naked except for her sandals, she crept up behind him. Her body was trim but well-curved, only the ridges where her ribs showed betrayed the meals she'd missed. Silently, she stole up on him on her shapely legs, her white arms outstretched.
"Hey, you finished back there yet?" he asked, still in the John L. Sullivan pose.
Then two arms snaked around his waist, grabbing him underneath his navel, while two warm soft breasts pressed into his back. He dropped his cigar.
The art lesson, he assumed, was over.
"You're full of surprises, ain't you?" he asked, starting to un-clasp her fingers.
"You haven't seen anything yet," she said, wriggling herself against him.
"Get around where I can see you."
"OK. What do you think of me?" she asked, slipping in front of him, all curves and fresh white skin.
"Wow! You ought to go around like this all the time."
"You'd get bored after awhile," she said, pirouetting in a mock-ballet step before his bulging eyes. Her sleek, smooth body was finely drawn but active-looking, there was a wicked glint in her eyes and a lecherous little smile on her lips.
"What a knock-out you are. Hell, I can put my hands almost around your waist," said he, doing so.
"Miss as many meals as I have and you'd be thin there, to."
"You're not too thin around the back," he said, grabbing a buttock in each hand and pulling her close. Leaning her head on his chest, she giggled and rolled her hips while he fondled the soft half-globes of creamy flesh.
"like that, do you?"
"Hell, yes."
"I like this too."
"Yeah, so I see."
"It's been such a long time! You know how long it's been since I've had a man? Three months!"
"Three months! Why, that's a sin, a girl as good-looking as you! What's the matter with the characters around here?"
"Oh, I just got tired of being involved with people all the time. It's good, now, having a man again."
"It's going to get better, too. Stand back a second, I want another look at those fine boobs of yours," he said, tweaking each ruby-tipped point. They covered and filled the inside of his hands nicely, the nipples swelling and growing hard under his tender manipulation. When he felt them rise, he bent his mouth to one and bit it lightly, then brushed it with his tongue.
"Oh, Eddie, I've been wanting that so long!"
His free hand stroked her gently curved stomach all the way down to each heated thigh then rose again and explored the base of her belly, making her quiver there with excitement.
"I'm about ready now," he said hoarsely, lifting his head.
"Me to. I've never been so ready!"
They kissed, her supple curves snuggling against him, and still locked in each other's arms moved toward the cot.
"I don't think that cot'll hold the both of us," he said, eyeing it over her shoulder.
"We'll have to take the blanket off and use the floor. Mind?"
"I can take it if you can."
He released her, she snatched the old army blanket off the cot and spread it on the floor. They were on it almost before it settled, his arms clasping her while he maneuvered between her out-spread thighs. The cold, bare floor was hard and uncomfortable and somehow made their coupling more urgent, more explosive. l
"Go on, go on, Eddie! That's it, Oh, that's it!"
He was part of her almost immediately, meshing his body to hers, urging her onward with goading thrusts. Her heels were digging against the floor, seeking purchase against his compelling desire, her shoulders sliding back beneath him, her fingers clutching his sides.
His legs rubbed against her inner thighs, the old floor-boards beneath them creaked with each convulsive movement, the rough blanket was damp from the co-mingled sweat from their straining bodies.
In short, jerking movements he edged her back off the blanket onto the floor. The bright light reflected off the white walls combined with the uncomfortable support to make it all seem strange, as though they were performing in some scientist's laboratory. The setting, the discomfort, nothing mattered to them save the feel of each other's lust-ridden bodies.
Again and again he searched and thrust at her with his aching need, making her groan and gasp in ever-mounting ecstasy. The white ceiling over his shoulder seemed to expand into infinity as her body loosened and burst free and she was one with the light, shooting higher and higher, still locked to him, impelled further and further by his deep-driven passion.
Her thighs responded to his ever-increasing urgency, eyes closed, she met and matched his torrid pace. She was hot and damp and wildly alive, her belly moving and heaving in frantic unison to each stroke.
"Oh, Eddie," she gasped.
Her body shook with quick tremors. Clutching at him, she felt his whole body go hard and stiff. For a breath-stopping instant the floor seemed to open beneath them and they drifted down to the center of the earth in a sea of yielding flesh....
They lay motionless and relaxed, the sweat on them growing clammy and their hearts beating slower and softer. Rolling away, he turned her face up to him and held her by the back of the neck. Her white teeth showed in a wide smile and she opened her eyes, looking at him.
"That was OK," he said.
"Glad you liked it."
"It'll be better tomorrow, though."
"Nothing can be better than what we've just had."
"Oh yes it can. Tomorrow, I'm buying you a bed. A double one."
"That'll be nice. Until then, though, I guess we'll just have to struggle along here on the floor, eh?"
CHAPTER FOUR
CHUCK HUZAK WAS JUST AS HAPPY to let Eddie stay behind with that skirt doing the painter bit as he climbed the pitch-black stair-case. Strang was an obnoxious son of a bitch and Eddie was a little too quick with his hands when someone rubbed him the wrong way.
Not that Chuck would mind seeing somebody slug Strang. He'd take a swing at him himself if Strang was still as sarcastic as he used to be back in Davis. He wanted to get some information out of him first. The idea had grown in his mind ever since he talked to Strang on the phone. Find Kathy.
She'd always talked about how exciting it would be to live in New York. Maybe she moved here after graduating. Chuck had even looked her name up in the phone book a week ago, but wasn't able to find it. Maybe she didn't have a phone or maybe she lived in some other town. Strang should know. A girl like that couldn't just drop out of sight, Strang must have some idea where she was.
Of course by this time Kathy probably was married. Somehow Chuck couldn't imagine Kathy marrying anyone else, not after those months in the apartment. The memory of her had grown stronger in the last few years, he knew he had to see her or at least know where she was.
Finding her would only be the start of the problem. After the stunt he pulled, running off like that without saying anything, it was damn unlikely she'd welcome him back with open arms. Still, that was five years ago. People changed in time. He knew that he'd changed and matured since then. Maybe they could make it together now that they both were older.
At any rate he was ready to give it a try.
He was at the third floor when he heard a high-pitched giggle from up above. Thinking it might be some guy with a broad and not wanting to surprise them if they were going at it, he stumbled purposely.
"Someone's coming, Vern."
"Good, the more the merrier," Vern giggled.
Queers, god-damned queers. Leave it to Strang to have high-class neighbors. Wishing he'd worn civvies instead of the monkey-suit, disgustedly he went up the steps. There was bound to be trouble when they saw his uniform.
The stairs ended at the fifth floor. Through the dim light that came from the sky-light, he could see the two gaudily dressed figures waiting for him.
"Look, Vern, a sailor!"
"Yummy, he's for me!"
"Oh no you don't! I saw him first."
"Knock it off, you two," Chuck rasped, elbowing them aside to get to a door that showed a crease of light. He could hear a Bach fugue being played on a hi-fi. Good, it must be Strang's, he always was a nut for Bach back in Davis.
"Come on, don't be that way," the one called Vern said, stepping behind him. "What do you want to go to Strang's old party for? We can have our own party up on the roof."
"Not interested. You and your friend go back to your games."
"But I want you, instead. I'm tired of him."
"How can you be so fickle, Vern?" the other asked, offended.
"Never mind him, he's just jealous," Vern said, putting a limp hand on Chuck's shoulder.
"Knock it off!" Chuck said, angrily brushing the hand off.
"Oh, you may as well forget him, Vern. He's one of those."
"That can be cured," Vern replied, putting his hand back.
"Get your hand off me," Chuck said in a cold, angry voice.
"Just come up and have a drink with us," Vern went on, ignoring the warning. "Believe me, you'll find it's tremendous, something you've never dreamed times these queers were rough in a fight, into Vern's solar plexus. Whirling, he hit him again in karate style. Making soft, bubbling sounds, the queer sank to the floor, his vagus nerve temporarily para--uhhh!"
Not this one, though. Whimpering with fright, he cowered against the wall.
"Take it easy, he'll be all right in a day or so," Chuck said, revolted by the abject collapse.
"You-you barbarian!"
Disgusted, Chuck turned back to Strang's door. Damn queers! Well, maybe decking that sap would teach him to keep his hands to himself. About to strike the door with his knuckles, he hesitated, feeling a terrific urge to turn and run. It seemed as if there was something monstrous and evil waiting for him on the other side of the door.
Disregarding the warning, he rapped on the door, waited half a minute and rapped harder. The sound of talking stopped and he heard foot-steps approaching. The door was yanked open and Strang, tall and thin as ever, looked out. He appeared the same except for the loss of some hair on his forehead.
"You've got the wrong place, Sailor. Say, wait a second! By God, it is! Huzak himself!"
"So you remember me,, Professor Strang."
"What luck! Come in, come in! How did you find me? Oh, I know. That mysterious phone call about an hour ago. Still playing sophomoric tricks, aren't you? You don't know how glad I am to see you," Strang said, ushering him in.
A little bewildered by the friendliness, Chuck went into the apartment. Strang seemed to mean what he was saying, too. His face was beaming the same way it used to when he gave a student a failing grade in one of his courses.
It wasn't because he was trying to butter him up for a loan, either, Chuck realized. The apartment was furnished expensively with thick rugs and heavy mahogany furniture. A Picasso hung in the foyer, and knowing Strang he was certain that it was an original. The heady atmosphere of money, big money, filled the place.
There were several people in the living room who glanced at him quickly for a moment before looking back to a part of the room he couldn't see. Laughing to himself, Strang led Chuck into the kitchen and closed the door.
"What luck you came here just now, Charles! I still can't get over it. It makes me almost think that there must be something like Fate guiding our actions."
"I'm a little surprised that you're so happy to see me, Professor. I half expected you'd forgotten me."
"Not at all, not at all. Have a drink. You're a bourbon drinker, aren't you?"
"That'll be fine. You seem to be doing pretty well, Professor. Oh, yeah. I had a little trouble with a couple of clowns outside just now. I had to deck one. Named Vern, I think."
"Vern? Medium-sized with a little moustache? Tried to pick you up, I assume."
"Yeah, he got annoying."
"So you hit him? Splendid, splendid. The damned queen had the nerve to walk out of my party along with his latest love. No manners, these homosexuals. What do you think of my place? A little different from that dreary middle-class hovel I had at Davis, isn't it?"
"Looks like something you'd never find in a house like this. I thought I'd get hit for a loan when I first came up the steps," Chuck said, taking the tumbler of Old Turkey that Strang handed him.
"Yes, I've finally found my niche. I wrote that epic for the Folson Toilet Paper people, you know. How do you like being back in the Navy, Charles? Ever regret running off like that? There was quite a commotion over that, I can tell you."
"I regret leaving Kathy holding the bag like that. I don't know yet whether I was right in leaving the school."
"I know I was. Of course, leaving wasn't entirely my own idea. I imagine you're familiar with the details of my expulsion?"
"I heard about it."
"Stupid morality of that mentally-constipated town! It all worked out for the best, though. Surprising, the way things turn out, isn't it? Who'd ever have thought, six years ago, that you'd end up back in the Navy and I'd be writing moronic doggerel for the idiot multitude? Where have you been stationed?"
"Oh, I was out on the coast for a few years. I'm between ships, now. Say, this bourbon is terrific!"
"The best, of course."
"You know, I really don't know why you're so glad to see me. We never hit it off that good back in school but you're acting as if I were the prodigal son or something."
"Why, I've always had the highest regard for your ability, Charles. You were one of the very few who seemed capable of being educated back in my scholastic days. I still have great hopes for you."
"Still? I'm not a kid anymore, you know."
"No, no, I don't mean formal education. That's just a crock and we both know it. I'm referring to something broader than that. The education of the soul!"
"The soul? I didn't know you were religious."
"Oh, but I am. One of these days I'll have to explain my religion to you. You might find it quite amusing. First, I'll show you some of it. Tonight."
"You astound me, Professor Strang. I guess once a pedagogue, always a pedagogue, eh?"
"You're amused, I see. When you finish your drink I'm going to show you something about yourself and the world. I'm going to ask you to join my little party."
"Glad to," Chuck said, wondering if Strang were hopped-up. His pale, almost colorless, light-blue eyes were agleam with a secret light as he gazed at Chuck.
"It's quite convenient for a man of my tastes to live in New York. I've been able to indulge my appetite for erotic pleasure without any inconvenience. Except of course to my bank-account. Davis, as they say, cramped my style. Tonight though is my crowning effort. This will be something you'd have to go back to the Ancient Romans to emulate!"
"No kidding?" Chuck asked, draining his glass. No doubt about it, Strang was over the hill. Any second now and he'd probably start showing him his collection of pornography. Drinking with that Madison Avenue crowd probably had set him off.
"You don't seem very enthusiastic, Charles."
"I've seen some pretty rough shows knocking around in the Navy. Port Said, Marseilles, Rio. To be honest, I've sort of lost interest in them."
"I doubt that you'll be bored by what I have set up. Come, follow me."
With Strang leading the way they went into the living-room. Three people, a man and two women, were seated in a semi-circle facing a corner of the room brightly lit by several flood-lamps. The man, a long-haired type wearing French cuffs that showed several inches beyond his black Brooks Brothers sleeve, was rapidly taking shot after shot with a small Kodak Retina camera.
Turning, Chuck saw what they were looking at.
A tall young man stood in the limelight, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in a long holder in the other. Wearing an English tweed jacket and Ascot tie, he might have just stepped out of a page from Esquire.
From the waist up, that is.
Apparently he was half-naked, but Chuck couldn't see the rest of him because of the woman who knelt at his feet. She was young and splendidly built, the backless evening gown she was wearing coming almost down to the base of her spine. The hem of the gown was pulled over her knees, exposing creamy-white calves. Shapely arms grasped the standing man around his thighs while he calmly sipped his drink....
"Say, I'm going to have to take off this jacket. These lights are hot," the man said.
"Leave it on, Glen. That's what's going to make these pictures so unusual. Besides, you're going to have something to think about besides the heat pretty soon," a man called Fred said, moving closer to the kneeling woman for a close-up. "That's it, Honey. Let's have just a little more expression."
"Look, Harold is back. He has a sailor with him," one of the women said.
"Oh, a new recruit, I suppose? Where'd you pick him up, Harold, Sand Street?" the other woman asked.
"He's an old student of mine, Charles Huzak, who wasn't able to take civilian life. Chuck, may I introduce you to Fred, Glen and their wives. I'd introduce you to my own wife, but as you can see she is busy fulfilling her duties as a hostess right now," Strang said, leading Chuck to a chair directly in back of the kneeling woman.
"What! That's your wife!" Chuck exclaimed.
"Yes, I'm married again. Charming girl and very hospitable. Don't you think so, Glen?"
"A fine woman. Talented, too," Glen replied, patting her silver platinum-colored hair.
Seating himself, Chuck watched Strang's wife, unable to hide the disgust he felt. Damn it, his own wife! The man was more evil than he had imagined. She was a good-looking dame, too.
"You don't seem to approve of my little party, Charles. Joan, why don't you join him? Perhaps he feels left out. I'm sure Glen won't object."
"All right. Why should they have all the fun?" one of the women, a plump brunette, said, getting to her feet and sauntering over to Chuck. Sitting on the floor with her head resting against his knees, she lit a cigarette languidly, turned and exhaled a cloud of smoke in his direction. "A sailor! My God, it must be almost ten years since I worked Skolly Square."
"We're having a little contest, Charles. How's Glen doing?" Strang asked. The glasses he wore turned into glittering pools of light from the floods, making him look as if he had giant bug-eyes.
"He still has four minutes to go before he beats your record," the camera-man replied.
"I don't think he's going to make it," Strang remarked.
"Not a bit of it, Strang old man. I'm good for another ten, at least," Glen said, showing his teeth in a forced smile.
"Maybe Mrs. Strang is shirking her labors. Perhaps I'd best liven up her performance," Strang said, walking bent-over towards her, looking like a hunting crane with his long legs and angular body.
"Oh, boy," the woman at Chuck's feet said excitedly. "Wait'll you get a load of this! What a bugger that Strang is! You never know what he's going to pull!"
"Yeah, I can see," Chuck answered.
"Perhaps my dear wife needs a drink," Strang grinned. Running his hand down her bare back to the start of the gown, he found the zipper cleverly hidden there and slowly pulled it down, the gown spreading apart over her buttocks in a widening V. She had a skimpy pair of black lace panties and Strang, after pulling back the waist-band, poured his drink, ice-cubes and all, down into the cleft between the swelling hillocks of flesh.
Squirming and twisting her ripe-fleshed body, Strang's wife pulled the sopping garment down to her knees, baring her frigid behind to the cheering on--.lookers.
"Look at that, she didn't even miss a beat."
"I couldn't have done that."
"Terrific! She sure doesn't let anything distract her, does she."
"Oh-oh, look at Glen?"
Glen was past the stage of giving any thought to the others. Face a fiery red, he had dropped his glass and cigarette along with the nonchalant pose he had been assuming and was fondling the platinum-blonde head.
"Jeez, this is too much for me to just watch, Sailor!" the plump brunette said, fumbling at Chuck's top. "How the hell do these screwy pants work? All those damn buttons. They're great for a fast score, aren't they?"
Chuck pushed her off and leaned forward. There was something about Strang's wife that made him realize why Strang had been so happy to see him.
"That's it, that's-Oh!" Glen was saying, red as a beet. Bending stiffly at the waist, the muscles at the sides of his neck taut as cords, he swayed on his feet like a toppling pine.
The room was silent as they held the strained position for a quarter-minute, then she broke off and fell in a heap on the floor, her long legs stretched out behind her, rasping sounds coming out of her throat. Breathing deeply, Glen lurched to a chair and sat down, holding his head in his hands.
"You lost by a good two minutes, Glen."
"No kidding," Glen said through his fingers.
"Here, my dear. Have a drink. You've earned it," Strang commented, kneeling by his wife and giving her a glass. "That's it, drink up. We have another guest, you know. An old student of mine. His name is Charles Huzak."
"Yes, I know," she murmured.
"Turn around and say hello to him."
"Hello, Chuck. Long time no see," Kathy said facing him, her eyes without expression.
Stunned, Chuck sat rigidly on the chair, the color draining from him, leaving him gray as a day-old corpse.
"So once more reality comes along and trips the dreamy-eyed fanatic," Strang said, lighting a cigarette and looking at Chuck as dispassionately as a scientist observing an insect under a microscope.
In slow, jerky movements Chuck got up to his feet, horrified eyes riveted on Kathy. Then his whole body started shaking violently, his white cap falling off his head.
"No. It can't be," he said finally in a dead, hopeless voice, rubbing his eyes as if to wipe away what he saw.
"But it is, Charles," Strang was saying. "This is Kathy, and she's my wife. What are you going to do now?"
Slowly, like a man walking on the bottom of the sea, Chuck turned and staggered towards the door.
"Yes, naturally you'll run. That's exactly what I expected you to do. Where will you run to, though? Will you be able to run fast enough? What will you dream about now that your old dream is destroyed?
It'll be very interesting, seeing what your reactions will be," Strang went on, his voice calm and low.
He was talking to a closed door. Chuck was outside in the murky darkness. His foot hit something soft, someone yelled from around his ankles.
"Vern! He's back again!"
Ignoring the panic-stricken fruit, Chuck stumbled over toward the steps. His eyes, accustomed to the floods in Strang's apartment, were useless in this thick darkness. Suddenly, his foot encountered nothingness and he pitched forward in a bone-jarring fall, rolling head over heels to the landing between the floors.
Scrambling to his feet, he paid no heed to his bruised body. Finding the guard-rail, he hitched himself along it down the stairs. A shaft of light illuminated the top floor and Strang's head appeared, looking down on him.
"That's it, Charles. Run. Or perhaps you'd prefer coming back? If you want Kathy, I'll let you have her for old times sake. The same way Glen had her."
Two steps at a time, half falling and half walking, Chuck clumsily made his way down, with Strang's laughter in his ears. Blue uniform damp with sweat, he finally reached the vestibule and opened the door.
Outside he walked quickly through the streets, past staring people who nudged each other and smirked, trying to get as far away as possible. His mind was a turmoil of whirling images: Strang's leering face, Kathy's garishly tinted hair, the way Strang loosened her dress, picked up his drink and--
No, no, he mustn't think of that. He had to go somewhere, find some place where he could settle down and calm himself. It couldn't have happened! Not Kathy, not Kathy!
"What's your hurry, Sailor?" A fat middle-aged man was standing in front of him, smiling coyly. Chuck tried to walk past him but he blocked his way again.
"Care to have a drink with me? You look like you could use one."
Chuck swung out wildly, glancing a right off the other's shoulder, and walked on not looking back. The brief encounter served to calm him a little, though. He had to grin wryly. Huzak, the great queer fighter, he thought.
Best to get out of the Village. Go someplace where he could collect himself, a few shots. That would blot out everything and help him to forget.
Unbidden, the memory of Kathy standing by the bed almost completely nude that first night came flooding back to him. The way he held her trembling body until she was ready. Her eyes when she turned and brought herself into his arms.
"Hey, Sailor, you want a woman?" asked a little Puerto Rican kid no older than twelve, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a knowing leer in his impudent dark eyes.
"No, scram, Kid. Vamoose."
"She's very good woman. Come on, I'll take you to her."
"Beat it, I said," Chuck said, walking faster. A mixed crowd of Negroes and Puerto Ricans were sitting on a stoop, watching him with amusement.
"Hombre, what's the matter with you? It's only a lousy ten bucks. You cheap or something?"
"Hey, you're wasting your time, kid. That cat ain't buying tonight. Maybe he just ain't interested in making out with women," one of the Negroes cried.
"Yeah, you in the wrong neighborhood, White Boy. The Village is that way," another voice called, dissolving into peals of full-throated laughter.
Jeers ringing in his ears, Chuck went on. When he reached the corner a beer-can clanged along the pavement, narrowly missing his feet. Was this the way the world really was, he thought? Cheap and mocking and cruel? A giant ball of mud, infested with malicious, vicious pygmies?
Kathy, even Kathy. Her supple white body now the exclusive property of Strang, her full-fleshed thighs spreading to take him, her ripe, young lips opening--
No! Don't think about it! Think about the booze you're going to drink with all that money you won in the crap game! Think of the wonderful drunk you're going to throw in the next few days! Think of how you're going to drink yourself blind and deaf and dead, dead to the memory of what you've just seen!
Heading east, he left the tenement quarter and entered a region of deserted warehouses. Now he turned south and walked steadily, not realizing where he was going. Then he got there. The last street.
The Bowery.
The old Third Avenue El was long gone now, but it's ghost still lingered on. The sounds of the on-rushing trains seemed to echo in the nightmares the winos were having. Nothing shielded the flop-houses, the greasy spoons, the missions, the hock-shops and the crummy bars from the sun now. No longer sheltered in the shadows of steel girders they waited, offering the security of knowledge that you couldn't possibly fall any' lower.
Clumps of rags with the remnants of men in them sprawled in doorways, alleys and against the sides of buildings. Two of them were dead, they were the lucky ones. No more sober moments, no more nightsticks, no more freezing winters, no more memories for them. They'd finally beaten the game.
Those without a stake for a bottle of sneaky pete hunched on curbstones and leaned against walls, keeping a wary eye open for cruising police cars and anyone who looked as if he had the price of a bottle of wine. One sighted Chuck and came towards him, his seamed, ruined face twisted into a grimace meant to be a winning smile.
"Say, pardon me, but could you help out an old sailor who's a little down on his luck," he whined.
"Yeah, sure," Chuck said, pulling out his wallet and giving him a bill without looking at it.
"Thanks, Mate, thanks a lot. I used to be a quartermaster, myself," he said, turning and hurrying to the nearest liquor store to buy a night's forgetfulness.
Surprised that he knew his rating badge, Chuck watched him hobble off. He probably had really been in the Navy once. Looking down the street Chuck saw a bar. What the hell, he thought, why not? For the kind of drunk he was planning, Skid Row would be the best deal.
No well-dressed men of distinction here or ruddy outdoorsmen taking a belt while they re-wrapped their trout rods. These were the real drinkers who didn't waste time on clothes or conversation. Instant oblivion was what they craved. And so did Chuck.
There were only a few customers in the bar. Nursing their glasses of dago red, they waited in the desperate hope that somebody would come in and buy the house a round. When Chuck came in and sat on a stool opposite the hulking, bald-headed bartender, they nervously began inching towards him like scraggly vultures converging on a dying animal.
"Evening, Sailor. What'll it be?" the bartender asked, laying aside his scratch sheet.
"Bourbon and water," Chuck said, putting his wallet on the bar and leaning forward.
"Hey, how about a shot for me, Mac?" one of the rummies called out in a quavering voice. "I'm pretty dry myself," another said. "Here's a ten," Chuck told the bartender. "Feed it to these bottle babies but keep them off my back."
"Sure thing, Sailor. Don't worry, they won't bother you. Look, why don't you take the bottle to one of the back booths and work on it there?"
"Good enough. Here's another ten for the booze," Chuck said, picking up the bottle and going back to one of the booths.
None of the other patrons bothered thanking Chuck. They were long past that stage. They began emptying glasses of wine as fast as the bartender could fill them. The seats were dirty in the booth, the joint smelled and the bourbon, Old Doc Hensley, tasted like alcohol from a ship's medical stores. But Chuck didn't give a damn. Resolutely, he began pouring them down, waiting to forget. He couldn't.
The more he drank, the more he remembered. Kathy, that first time he saw her, young and healthy as a two-year-old filly frisking in a field in the spring. God, she was so happy and full of life those days! How could she change so?
Was it his fault for taking off?
No, it wasn't his fault. Strang, that was the one. Strang and his wise mouth always sneering, always cutting you down. Damn it, he'd like to cut him down, sometime! Lord, he was married to Kathy! She was his woman, living with him, sleeping with him, doing anything he wanted!
He drank faster but couldn't drown the images in his mind. The bottle, half full when he got it, was finished in less then two hours. His eyes were unfocussed and he was seeing double, his hands felt as if they were encased in thick masses of cotton candy. But he still remembered, still remembered.
"Hey! Hey, Bar-keep!" he yelled, leaning awkwardly out from the booth.
"Yeah, sure thing, Mac. What'a you want?" The bartender said, hurrying down.
" 'Nother bottle," Chuck said, pushing his face into his hand and propping his elbow on the table.
"Right away. Want any more water?"
"Naw. No water."
The bartender brought back a full fifth this time. It was illegal to let a customer pour from his own, but the hell with that! He wasn't going to let this mark go. Chuck fumbled loose another bill and handed it to the bartender who couldn't help grinning when he got another look at the thick roll.
The swabbie was loaded, and he didn't get many chances for that kind of money in this neighborhood. Watching Chuck from the bar, he saw him slowly bend over the table until his forehead was pressing against it. He could hear him saying some skirt's name over and over again.
The chump! He deserved to be taken.
Leaving the bar, he walked over to the telephone and called a number. Usually he didn't go in for the rough stuff, but hell, this was too good to pass up.
"Hello, Sal? This is Al. I'm over at the place, working. Listen, how'd you like to make a fast buck tonight? I got this sailor in the place and he must have a couple of bills on him.... Yeah, he's lapping it up like a fish. You won't have any trouble at all with him. . . . Naw, it'll be simple, you won't even need any help. Use the jack once and it's all over.... OK, go by the window when you get here and I'll close up. Just don't hit him until he's a few blocks away from the joint.... OK, one more thing, don't try and hold out on me, I got a good look at what he's carrying."
Hanging up the phone, he began hustling the customers out of the door. They complained weakly but he got rid of them easily enough. Looking back at Chuck, he saw that he wasn't passed out yet but was damn close to it.
Poor sap! Still, if he didn't take him, there were plenty of others who would. He was so stoned Sal wouldn't have to bust him up, that was one break he was getting. Not that anybody who let himself get all screwed up over a dame, like this clown, deserved any breaks. Sal looked through the window and rapped.
Going over to the booth, the bar-keep shook Chuck to get his attention. "Come on, Sailor. I'm closing up now."
"Huh? What?"
"Closing time. There's a diner a few blocks down the street that might be open yet. Why don't you go over and get some coffee? That'll fix you up fine," the bartender said, pulling him up to his feet.
"Can't get drunk. Trying to but can't get drunk."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Get that way sometimes myself. Some coffee'll straighten you out, though," he said, walking Chuck to the door and helping him out. "Right this way, the other side of that flop, Sailor. They'll fix you up there," he said, pointing him in the direction where Sal was waiting. Then he went back inside, not wanting to be outside when it happened.
Chuck stood at the curb, feeling the pavement reel under his feet. His gut began heaving; hanging on to a lamp-post, he puked. When he finished, his stomach felt better but all the liquor seemed to be packed into his head now. He knew that he was as drunk as he'd ever been in his life, but his mind still felt clear though it was all he could do to stagger down the street.
Ship out, that's what he'd do. Ship out way the hell in the boon docks for a couple of years. Get away from it all and forget the whole damn lousy bunch. Maybe they'd send him out to the Med.
His loose-jointed legs seemed to walk by themselves and he yawed from side to side like a ship with its rudder out of commission. He felt very tired and let his head fall forward on his chest. Occasionally, a car passed and drunken derelicts mumbled at him from door-ways, but none of them tried to ass him for anything.
When Blinky saw him lurching toward him, his first impulse was to rush out of the doorway and see if he could hit the kid up for a quarter or dime or nickle or anything. Blinky was in a hell of a mess.
He was sober.
At the sight of the guy following the sailor with his right hand inside his coat pocket, though, Blinky quickly stepped back into the doorway. He'd been on the Street long enough to know what was going to happen and he didn't want to get involved.
Looking quickly up and down the street, the guy walked just behind the sailor. When they reached a row of garbage cans piled up in front of a greasy spoon, the guy whipped out a sap and clipped the sailor, knocking him to his hands and knees. He hit him again, taking full armed swings and kicked him in the face.
Jeez, Blinky thought, why did they always have to kick you like that when you're down? That's how he had lost his front teeth three years back. He wished vaguely that the sailor hadn't been kicked like that.
The guy doing the mugging sure didn't waste any time. He had the wallet out in a jiffy and walked away, fast. When he reached the corner he turned up and disappeared. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody but Blinky.
Slowly, Blinky peeped out, checking to make sure nobody was around. Basically timid, he had his back to the wall and was desperate enough to take a chance. All he had on him was a dime, he hadn't been able to score at all that day.
Scuttling fearfully from his hiding place like a crab coming out from under a rock, Blinky hurried to the garbage cans, darting swift glances about him the way a rabbit does when it's in an open field and knows that hawks are about. The sailor was lying still, blood pouring out of his head when Blinky knelt by him and started tugging at his shoes.
A half hour later a cruising cop-car, flashing it's spot along the cans, sighted Chuck. Two cops got out and walked towards him. Chuck was starting to come out of it.
"This damn fool sure picked a fine place to tie one on. They kill him?"
"Naw, he's more drunk than anything else. See, he's coming around. Get the wagon, I'll stay here. Easy does it, Sailor."
One of Chuck's eyes was closed. The other opened and looked around. Then he started crying like a kid.
"Hey, take it easy, Sailor. You don't have anything to cry about. You're lucky, you could have been killed."
"That's why I'm crying, you damn fool!"
CHAPTER FIVE
HALF AWAKE EDDIE ROLLED OVER, trying to find a more comfortable position on the blanket, but it was no go. The floor was hard as a rock everywhere he looked. Everything was hard except the soft flesh his arm was resting against. Turning his head that way, long hair tickled his nose.
Opening his eyes, he found that he was looking at the back of Selma's head. Remembrance of the past night came back to him then and he awoke completely though his head was fogged with lack of sleep.
They hadn't done much sleeping.
Selma slept on her side, her face pressed against her arm. The coarse brown blanket was wrapped around her waist and legs. Running his hand down the shallow valley of her spine, he watched her squirm in her sleep, causing the blanket to slip away from her trim waist.
Stretching, he found that just about every muscle and bone in his body was aching and sore. A good rub-down should fix him up. Pulling the blanket off Selma, he put his hand on her bare hip and shook her until she groaned awake.
"Oh, my aching back! Sleeping on the floor was one hell of a stupid idea," she said, rolling over on her back. Even with her eyes purled with lack of sleep, she was something you'd enjoy finding in bed with you in the morning. Eddie did.
Gently he began rubbing the small of her back. Stretching out flat on her stomach, she let him knead her well-used flesh, looking back at him over her shoulder.
"Hmmm, that's nice. You really gave me a work-out last night. It's times like this I wish I could afford a bed."
"I'll have to buy you one."
"That'd be nice."
"No kidding, what do you say I move in here? We get along pretty good and I'd rather help you out with the rent than give my dough to that damned hotel. We could have a lot of laughs, living together for a while, Selma."
"I I don't know," she said, looking away.
"Oh come on, don't foul things up. It's a good idea. You need some help paying the rent and I need a place to stay," he said, dropping his hands down lower where he could get a better grip.
"Hey, easy with the hands there! I'm trying to think."
"What's there to think about? Anyway, why should my hands bother you? You must be a little sore from the floor last night. Ah, that's soft. I should have used it for a pillow."
"Stop it," she said in the tone of voice women usually use when they don't really mean what they're saying.
"Why not, Selma? Why not let me move in," he said, continuing to squeeze her buttocks.
"Because damn you, I said to stop that! because there's a fat chance I'll get any work done with you around."
"Oh, I won't bother you that much, Selma. Just think of it, a big double bed."
"Mmmmmmnn."
"Thick, juicy steaks."
"OK, OK, you can come in for a few weeks."
"Ah, that makes me very happy."
"Yes, I can see."
"Roll over and I'll show you how happy I am. That way there'll be two of us."
"Oh, no! Not after last night. I wasn't kidding when I talked about my back bothering me. We go through that business again and they'll take me out of here on a stretcher," she said, sitting up and drawing her legs up under her.
"Come on, don't be a fink," he grinned, playfully tweaking one of her soft, pink nipples.
"I'm a working girl, or at least I'm trying to be one. And I can't afford letting myself get laid-up," she said, not trying to stop him from fondling her breasts.
"Sure you can. It's the best thing you can do," he replied, tracing a crooked trail with his forefinger from the base of one out-thrust breast all the way down her body to the warm meeting place of her thighs.
"I think we'd better wait a bit, Eddie."
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, exasperated. "Take a look at me! Hell, you think I turn it on and off like that? Come on Honey, let's stop wasting time," he said, resting his hands on her white shoulders.
"Yes, I can see that you have a problem."
"Selma, Baby, if you keep doing that, my problem's going to explode all over the place."
"That would be a shame. I'll tell you what, Eddie.
What do you say we try something a little ... different?"
"Well, now.... What do you have in mind?"
"Just lie down on your back, Eddie. You'll find out," she said, her black eyes glittering.
His hands clasped behind his head, Eddie watched her kneel over him. Maybe she was planning something of a dual nature. If she was, he would do his share.
Her fingers were nimble and gentle and Eddie began moving his body against the uncomfortable floor, straining higher and higher while she looked back at him, grinning. Then she bent her head and he felt her tongue caressing him. He reached down and caught her leg in his hand and squeezed it, hard.
Just as he thought it was going to be over she lifted up and swung one leg over him, the two white columns of her legs astride him.
"I've never done it this way before, Selma."
"Neither have I," she giggled.
Holding her by the upper arms, he felt her slide down his propped up thighs, her hair falling in wisps in front of her face.
"Easy, easy, steady as you go."
"Ah, that's it.... "
He was there and she was above him, leaning forward just barely within nibbling distance of his lips, her eyes closed and her face red and grinning as if she was being tickled to death. Eddie had never tried this before, the novelty of it excited him. He was used to just seeing the sweaty skin of a shoulder. This was different.
He could see her, all of her, naked and excited, riding him like a wild-eyed ancient goddess of sex, bouncing up and down like a puppet on a string. He tried to match her pace but the position was too awkward so he just lay back and enjoyed it. "More, Honey, more! More!"
She was jerking up and down like a mad little animal trying to escape a cloth bag. Her head was "Oh, Selma!" swinging from side to side, her breasts jumped up and down like luscious tree-fruit battered in a storm.
His hands grasped at her body, seeking a hold so that he could wrestle her down to the floor, but she had the better balance and rode him like a champ rodeo bronc rider.
Then he was straining up at her, trying to reach as far toward that torridly moving torso as possible, his fingers digging into her soft flesh wherever he could clutch her. Then she gasped, he felt her thighs and belly tremble, they were both shaking and he was pushing up, up to that lovely body. She was making moaning noises and bending over at the waist. They shuddered to a close and it was over.
Slowly she pulled up and lay beside him, the rich heady aroma of her sweat-glistening skin pungent in his nostrils. Through the white rims of half-closed eyes she regarded him steadily as a cat. Gradually her gasping breath slowed and calmed and she spoke.
"So that's how it is on top!"
"I guess it's OK for old men but I'm not that old yet. It was kind of interesting, though."
"You really mean it about moving in here."
"What do you think?"
"All right, you can. But don't go getting funny ideas and think you own me just because you're paying the rent. I'm no whore!"
"Hey, take it easy. Who called you one?"
"Well, don't even think it."
"Sure, Baby, sure," he said, kissing her. Going into the bathroom he splashed around for a quarter hour, singing loudly. It was his first real, honest-to-God shack-up deal, and he was as cocky as a rooster stalking through a flock of hens. Surprised to find a razor in her medicine cabinet, he realized that she must use it for her legs.
"Well, if I can get my face as smooth as her legs, it'll be the closest shave I've ever got," he thought as he worked soap into a thick lather and rubbed it into his day-old stubble. When he finished and came out, she had the easel set up and was sketching away once more.
"Oh, there you are. It's about time. Stand over there like you were last night and we'll get back to work. You should be a little simpler to sketch now, after that little work-out we've just had," she said, motioning for him to go back to where he had posed before sex reared its irrepressible head and disrupted the anatomy class for the night.
"Again? What about breakfast?"
"There's a piece of bread in the box that hasn't gone moldy yet, I think. There's a few tea bags left that haven't been used more than once, too. Unless you want to finish the wine."
"Is that all you have?"
"Yes. That's one of the draw-backs of this gay Bohemian life we live in exciting, romantic Greenwich Village."
"Hell, I'm hungry for some food! I'll run downstairs and pick up up some steaks and stuff."
"Steaks? For breakfast?"
"Sure, us working people have got to keep our strength up,"-he said with a grin as he pulled on his clothes.
"Work? What's your job?"
"Keeping you happy. And if you don't think that takes a lot out of a man, you're mistaken."
"OK, steak it is. Lord, it's been a long time since I've had a sirloin. I'd better go along with you and make sure we get a good one. Some of the stores around here'll gyp you silly if you give them half a chance."
"No, you stay here, Selma. I'll be back in a jiffy," he said, kissing her and patting her rump as she started to pull herself into her faded dungarees.
Grinning widely, he closed the door behind him and started down the stairs. The tenement didn't look as crummy as it did last night when he came up the stairs with Chuck. Who'd ever have thought that something that looked so dilapidated on the outside could have a jewel like Selma in it?
Where was Chuck? he wondered. He couldn't wait to see him and tell about the deal he'd fallen into. Good old Chuck had known better than to come busting into the room last night. But now that everything was settled, Eddie felt like showing off Selma to someone he knew. Maybe Chuck was sacked out upstairs in Strang's place. He'd have to check when he came back.
His stomach was growling hungrily but he put down the temptation to grab something in a restaurant, thinking of Selma waiting for him. The poor kid looked as if she could really use a meal. Finding a butcher, he ordered two huge sirloins and some bacon. Next he went to a grocery store and came out with an armful of assorted foodstuffs, picked up a quart container of coffee in a lunch-room and bought a pint of cognac to lace the coffee with.
Arms burdened with food, he walked back to the house and kicked at Selma's door until she opened it. Her eyes wide with eagerness she led him to the table and helped him lay out the food. Taking the container of coffee, he poured a few ounces of cognac into it and fixed up two cups of coffee royal while she bustled with the steaks.
"Here, have some." He proffered her one of the chipped cups with the spiked brew.
"Thanks, I've been going crazy, thinking about those steaks while I've been waiting. God, am I hungry!" Taking a gulp of the coffee, she nearly choked on it.
"Good that way, ain't it?" Eddie asked.
"Lord, why didn't you give me some kind of warning! What did you put into it?" she sputtered.
"Cognac. If you don't like it, give it to me. I'll finish it for you."
"No, thanks, I didn't say that I didn't like it. This is what I need to keep me going until that steak's ready. How do you want yours? Rare?"
"OK with me."
"Good, we won't have to wait long then."
The room was filled with the aroma of frying meat. Selma kept cramming her mouth with bread, watching the steaks cook. When they were just past the stage of being raw she pulled them out of the pan onto plates and tore into hers without speaking.
She hadn't been kidding about being hungry, Eddie realized. It kind of surprised him that a girl as good-looking and smart as she was could be so poor in New York in this time and age. He felt protective and tender towards her, even though she didn't look too ladylike stoking pieces of red meat into her mouth. When they finished eating she leaned back in her seat and lit one of the cigarettes he had bought for her.
"I guess you must think you've been sleeping with a cannibal or something after that little exhibition. I hope you aren't dismayed by my table manners. God! I was hungry!"
"Naw, that's all right. It seems kind of funny, a girl like you being broke. I always figured a girl could pick up something pretty easy."
"Oh? Well, I've had some offers, but I'll have to be a lot more desperate before I sell myself!"
"I didn't mean that. I mean, get a regular job in an office or something. You shouldn't have any trouble with your looks and brains."
"Oh, you mean the nine-to-five bit. The trouble with that is it takes me away from my real work too much," waving an arm at her paintings.
"This art stuff is OK, I guess. But don't you think you should be a little more practical?"
"You still don't see what I'm trying for, do you, Eddie? To you all this is nothing but a game, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't say it's a game, but it's sure not practical. Why can't you get a regular job and kid around with this at nights after you get through working?"
"Because I'm not just kidding around! Listen, Eddie, in this life you have to have something you want, and want hard enough to devote everything you have to it. If you don't have something like that, you're nothing! You're just a piece of driftwood being shoved around by the tide. Nothing and nobody is going to shove me around!" she said, her black eyes gleaming.
"Whew! OK, Selma, I won't say anything else. Forget it. If you want to be a great artist, that's all right with me."
"Well, as long as we've started this, what is it you want, Eddie? That money you got in the Navy isn't going to last forever, you know. What are your plans?"
"Oh, I guess I'll knock around for a while, then visit my old home town or pick up something someplace," Eddie said, lamely. In truth he hadn't the vaguest idea what he would do for a living. All his plans had been how he would enjoy himself with the money he'd make. When he bothered thinking about a job, he imagined some executive position in an office filled with nubile secretaries squealing happily as he pinched their pliant bottoms.
"Now who's being impractical?" Selma laughed.
"Hell, I don't have to worry, I've still got plenty of dough. I'll start sweating it when my bank roll goes."
"That's silly, Eddie darling. The time to start looking for work is while you still have money. If you wait 'til you're broke, you'll have to take the first idiotic thing that comes along. Whatever you do, don't end up being a Village ass like so many of the guys around here."
"I've got plenty of time. Besides, it's too early for such serious conversation. What do you think we should do today?"
"I'd like to do some more sketching the rest of the morning. This afternoon I'm going to have to call up the school and see if a modeling job is open."
"What do you want to take that job for? Take a break, I'll pay the rent."
"Listen to my Sugar Daddy talk! Diamond Jim himself. Just two minutes ago you were lecturing me about getting a job; now you're suddenly against it."
"Yeah, I know. But that modeling bit, I just don't go for all those guys looking at you."
"So that's what's bothering you. You needn't worry about my virtue, battered though it is. An art class is really so respectable it's disgusting."
"All right, all right," he laughed. "What do you say we go out on the town today, do the tourist bit?"
"Hmmm, maybe tonight. Besides, if you're going to move in you'll have to get your things from the hotel."
"Yeah, I forgot all about that. We have to buy that bed I promised you last night, too. I don't want to spend another night on the floor, my back won't take it."
"That'd be fine! We should be able to get a folding couch pretty cheap. I'll put on my dress and join you."
"Yeah, you do that," he said, lighting up a stogie and following her to the tiny closet.
"Say, don't you ever get enough? Maybe you'd better wait outside or we'll never get out of here," she said.
"Just trying to keep my hand in, that's all."
"Try giving it a rest instead, will you?"
"Say, wait here a second, I'm going to find out what happened to Chuck, the guy who came in with me last night. I ought to thank him. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have run into you."
"Who's that, the sailor?"
"Yeah. He's a pretty good guy. If I can get hold of him, maybe you can fix him up with something, eh?"
"Sure, if you want me to. If he's anything like Strang, I'm not too certain I want to meet him, though."
"Chuck's all right. Smart, too."
Eddie climbed up the steps until he reached the fifth floor. Searching the doorbells, he finally found Strang's name. Two oddly sharp notes sounded when he pressed the bell.
"Yes, who is it?" a woman's voice asked through the closed door.
"I'm a friend of Chuck Huzak. I understand he came up here last night and I'm wondering if he's still around, or if you know where he's staying now."
"Oh, just a second."
There was a sound of chains and bolts and then the door opened. Eddie found himself looking at the most extravagantly beautiful blonde he had ever seen. She was tall and most of that superb length was in her long, shapely legs which appeared abruptly, bare and pink, under the crotch-high hem of the filmy baby-doll pajamas she wore.
Baby doll pajamas! On some women they look ridiculous. But on her, with her terrific legs, out-jutting breasts with nipples that showed pale red through the transparent material, and rounded hips, the garment was the sexiest item in the world. It took some time for Eddie to work his way up to her face, and he wasn't disappointed when he got there.
*** Archive Note: At this point in the hard-copy pocketbook, the text became garbled, some text was printed on subsequent lines, etc. The following was reconstructed as best as could be done.***
A trifle broad at cheek and mouth, with wide-set blue eyes as cool and distant as Arctic ice, her face this way was the most ordinary thing in the world. She was shaped like the fevered dream of an adolescent who has looked at too many center-spreads in the men's magazines. She was completely without expression, as if meeting him on the street. Eddie exhaled mightily, making his cigar-tip burn a fiery red.
"Won't you come in, please," she said in low, dulcet tones.
Like a man in a dream Eddie stepped in and followed her swaying hips into the living room. The pajamas were so transparent you could even make out the ridges on her spinal column, if anyone was interested in the ridges of her spinal column.
Eddie's attention was focused lower.
Meekly sitting in the arm-chair she offered, he watched goggle-eyed as she bent over a coffee table for a pack of cigarettes. The rim of cloth rode up, up, up over her hips, he was looking at the whitest, most perfect female behind his connoisseur's eye had lit on in some time.
True, he thought, Selma's was first class; but this was really a work of art, he'd have to give it the palm. He rose from his seat to give it the palm, but she turned around. Ignoring his outstretched hand she sat on a couch opposite him, pulling those lovely legs beneath her and resting one arm along the top of the head-rest, looking as if she were posing for a cheesecake photo.
"Are you in the Navy too?" she asked in a conversational tone.
The gambit, he could see, was to be cool and sophisticated about the whole thing. Well, if that was the way she wanted it, he could play the game. He carefully flicked his cigar ash into a convenient ash tray before answering.
"No, I just got out. I used to be on the same ship with Chuck."
"Really? You must tell me about it."
"Is Chuck around now?"
"No, he came in for a few minutes last night and then ran off. He's very good at that, you know. Running off."
"Do you expect him back?"
"Eventually. He originally came to see my husband, Doctor Strang. He didn't know that I'd married him."
"Oh, you're married!"
"Yes, but you needn't be so glum about it. My husband and I have a working arrangement. What's your name?"
"Eddie, Eddie Chase."
"Glad to meet you, Eddie. I hope you don't mind my going around like this."
"Mind? Hell, no."
"I'm really lucky to be wearing this silly thing. Usually Harold, my husband, insists that I go about in the nude. It flatters his male ego."
"I don't blame him. If you were my wife, I think I'd do the same."
"That's very gallant of you, Eddie. Chuck used to be gallant to me, too, when I first met him. He's the first man who ever had me, you know."
"The lucky bastard!"
"Then he left me. That was a very terrible thing to do to me, Eddie. It made me lose all my confidence. I didn't think men wanted me any more, so naturally I had to prove to myself that they did. Do you want me, Eddie?"
Somewhat to his surprise, Eddie discovered that he did. When you remember that he had been doing nothing for the last day or so except hop in and out of beds (or floors, as the case might be) with various females, and had just performed quite creditably a short time before that very morning, you couldn't fault him for passing up Kathy for a little while.
However it became increasingly obvious that he was ready, willing and able to do his duty by Kathy should the occasion arise. The occasion was certainly arising, to such an extent that it was unnecessary for him to answer her somewhat rhetorical question.
"Oh yes, I see. I'm glad."
"So am I."
"What did you and Chuck do in the Navy?"
The switch in conversation took Eddie by surprise, but he felt that if she wanted to shilly-shally around that was her female privilege. Eventually she would come around, that he was certain. In order to show her how certain, he took off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt while he answered her. "We were quartermasters."
"Oh, like that song, 'In the corps, in the corps'. "
"Naw, that's Army. In the Navy it's the guys who navigate and steer the ship."
"You look like a good navigator."
"I am," he replied, stepping out of his skivvies.
"I'll say you are!"
"Let's play," Eddie said, tiring of the conversation. "All right."
Lying down on the couch, she pulled the pajamas up to her neck. Her large breasts looking as if they were straining to reach the ceiling, one well-rounded thigh was lifted slightly on its calf while the other rested half off the couch. Her face was as calm as a store window manikin over the ruffles around her neck. One arm was thrown back over her head, causing the creamy-white breast on that side to pull slightly higher than the other one.
Stepping over the coffee table, he knelt at her side and hovered over the two snowy, pink-tipped peaks of soft flesh. Her eyes might have been painted, they showed so little expression. She must be carved out of ice, he thought. Then he brought his hand down, closed it on a handful of living warmth and began kneading it with growing excitement.
"Lord, what a body," he breathed, laving the ruby-tinted nipple with his tongue and making it grow stiff and erect.
A faint aroma of exotic perfume assailed his nostrils as he ran his eager lips down the unblemished contours of her lovely torso. From breast to breast, down the gentle curve of her belly to her delectable thighs and gleaming legs and up again, he made his way, paying homage to each perfect part.
Eventually he worked his way up to her face again. Her expression hadn't changed. like a life-sized doll, she calmly watched him bend his head over hers and kiss her sensual lips. Her strong arms were around his shoulders, clasping him to her. Their tongues met and pressed together while he held her full-blown body close to him, kissing her hard and trying to awaken some passion in her.
Though she responded to him, it was without eagerness. He regretfully decided that she was nothing but a good-looker, and that was it. A lot of beautiful women are that way, unfortunately. Used to being worshipped and desired by men, they are unable to give of themselves in the sex act and take a passive role in the proceedings. Still, Eddie thought, perhaps he could bring some life to those luscious thighs anyway.
She lay quiescent while he maneuvered himself into position, like a bucking horse at a rodeo that stands quietly while the cowboy mounts. Then the chute pops open and all hell breaks loose as the bronc comes humping and bucking madly into the center of the arena, raising clouds of dust as it tries to split the rider in two on its back-bone.
As soon as he made the first tentative lunge she gave a stifled groan, wrapped her arms around him and went wild from the waist down. Her legs lifted and clamped around him as he pressed himself to her pulsating, throbbing body.
She was big and smooth in his arms, her thighs and belly snapping back and forth in short jerks with each thrust, her once immobile face twisted in a lustful grimace, her heated breath blasting the side of his neck and face as she screamed her need. "More, more, damn you!"
It was like coupling with a volcano or some other spectacular element of nature as he inflicted upon that voluptuous form his driving need, reaching undreamed heights of carnality in the taking of that lust-maddened body.
She was slippery and rank with sweat now, the whole length of her body from mid-thigh to moaning lips was pressed against him, urging him on and still on while the tortured springs of the couch sagged and creaked in tune to their frantic movement.
"That's good-good-good!" she moaned.
Somehow, without his being actually aware of it, they tumbled off the edge of the couch and onto the floor. There, with redoubled ardor, he thrust again and again into that torrid and willing flesh, like a surf-boat plunging into the surging waves and breaking them on its prow.
They slammed together in feverish haste, joined and locked together in towering, upward-spiraling release, gasping and clutching each other as he sank deeper and yet deeper into her excited body.
"Oh, Lord, yes, yes, yes!" she cried, her heated belly matching his quickened pace.
Possessed by lust, they strained their rutting bodies together in an upward mounting, towering explosion of flesh that seemed to take them up and away from the entire universe in complete and mutual surrender.
"Oh, Chuck, Chuck," she gasped, shuddering under him while he hugged her tightly in one last rigid embrace, his shoulders shaking with quick violence.
She lay limp, as if boneless, when he rolled away from her. Eyes closed and mouth half opened, she might have been asleep. Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of something burning. Looking around, he saw that his cigar had slipped off the ash-tray and burned a big, black hole in the rug.
Groaning, he crawled over to it and deposited the smoldering butt in the ash tray. Looking back, he saw that she was starting to rise. Pulling the sweat-soggy pajama down to her hips, she sat on the couch and looked at him peevishly.
"Couldn't you be more careful? Do you know what that rug cost?" she snapped, making the transition from passion to prosaic detail with typical female ease.
"Sorry, but what the hell could I do?"
"All right, all right," she said, stretching. "Whee, that was one hell of a ride. You're pretty good, Eddie."
"As good as Chuck?"
"Oh, you mean that little Freudian slip of mine? I always say it just about that time."
"What's your husband think of that?"
"Harold finds it very amusing. He's even made tape recordings, without my knowing about it, of course. They're good for a lot of laughs at parties."
"He sounds like he's full of laughs, that husband of yours," Eddie said, putting his head into his hands. Recent events were beginning to catch up with him, he was beginning to fear that this civilian life might be rougher than he'd anticipated.
"Did Chuck ever talk to you about me?"
"No, he's pretty close-mouthed."
"Well, you'll see him later, won't you?"
"I guess so."
"When you see him, make sure you tell him about us, won't you?"
"I don't know, it might be smarter not to. What the hell's the set-up here, anyway? Do you usually lay anybody who walks in?"
"Yes. Make sure you tell Chuck that. I want him to know," she said, lighting a cigarette.
"Yeah, sure," Eddie said, fumbling with his clothes. She was a luscious piece, but a little off up topside. He'd better get out before her old man came in.
"If you want to use the bathroom, it's in there," she said. "Just try not to awaken my husband, he didn't get to bed 'til late last night."
"Your husband! You mean he's in here?" Eddie said, looking up in surprise. He'd assumed that Strang was out someplace, now this crazy broad was saying he was right in the next room!
"Yes, I think I hear him waking up now. I guess we were a little too noisy."
Sure enough, somebody was calling "Kathy, where the hell are you?" from one of the bedrooms. Now, if there was one thing you could say about Eddie, and be certain, it was that he liked a fight and wouldn't back down from one. Every man however has a point where he'll run rather than fight, no matter how pugnacious he is.
Standing there naked, after taking another man's wife, Eddie felt very vulnerable. Things were moving a little bit too quickly for him to grasp. He didn't feel like doing battle with, some crazed husband, he wanted to go off someplace and rest awhile.
Panic-stricken he grabbed his clothes and dashed out of the apartment just as the bedroom door started to open. Fortunately, there was nobody outside and he crept up the steps to the roof. It was a bright spring day and a pigeon fancier on the next building was working his birds. He glanced at Eddie, then went back to his coops.
In Greenwich Village it doesn't pay to get involved.
Crouching behind the door, Eddie pulled on his clothes, hoping that nobody would come up the steps. These New York women were wild! When he finished dressing he crept back in and looked cautiously at the doors. They were all closed.
Slowly he walked down the stairs. When he passed Strang's door, he heard them both laughing inside. Maybe Strang didn't give a damn what his wife did, but Eddie was glad he hadn't waited to find out.
He still couldn't quite figure out what happened. He just walked in and suddenly he was wrestling on the floor with a blonde goddess, like something you read about in one of those men's magazines.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he almost went past the floor where Selma was waiting for him. Selma! For a while, he'd forgotten all about her. He had a hunch that he'd better not mention his bout with Strang's wife. Selma might believe in free love and all that, but she probably wouldn't go for him sleeping around while he was living with her, not if he knew women.
Living in this building was certainly going to be lively, he thought.
CHAPTER SIX
"WELL, YOU SURE TOOK YOUR TIME," Selma said when he came back into their room.
"We got to talking," Eddie said, sinking wearily into one of the chairs.
"What did your friend do, stay there the night?"
"Uh, no, he wasn't around. What do you say we let that shopping expedition go until tomorrow and just lay around today?"
"So your friend wasn't there," Selma said, looking at Eddie shrewdly. "Who were you talking to?"
"Strang. He was telling me about what a hell of a student Chuck used to be. Got any of that coffee left?" Eddie asked, looking up. If he got careless, this was going to be the shortest shack-up job on record.
"Talks a lot, doesn't he?"
"Yeah, he sure chews your ear," he answered, drinking the luke-warm remnants of the spiked coffee from the card-board container.
"What do you think of his wife?"
"His wife? Not bad-looking, I guess."
"Not bad-looking? Why, she's one of the most beautiful women in New York!"
"I didn't notice. I just saw her for a few seconds before I left," Eddie lied desperately.
"Eddie Chase, you're a hell of a lousy liar," Selma said, laughing merrily.
"Hey, what are you laughing about?"
"You. Tell me, Eddie, was she as good as she looks? I've always heard that those extravagantly beautiful women were lousy when it came to bed."
"Well, you're a good looking woman and you're damn good in bed, or would be if we had a bed here," he leered, trying to change the subject.
"Uh-uh, Eddie. I'm all right, but I'm not in her class and I know it. Come on, Eddie, tell me. How was she?"
"What makes you certain that I laid her? Hell, I just met the woman."
"That doesn't matter. I've seen too many delivery boys coming down those steps with the same silly grin you had when you came in. Kathy Strang is the fastest push-over in the Village and that's saying a lot. believe me."
"You should know."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You didn't waste much time last night."
"No, Eddie, I didn't. I'm a push-over and I admit it. When I see a man I like, I don't waste any time. I doc't take them on in platoons like Kathy does, though."
"OK, OK, I admit it, I grabbed her. What could I do when she started parading it in front of me like that? Hell, Selma, I'm only human."
"I don't know about that. After last night and this morning, I thought it'd be safe to let you go up there but I underestimated you. Are you that hungry all the time?"
"Well hell, Selma, what could I do? She was just too much to pass by."
"I know, she made a pass at me when I first moved in here a few months ago."
"You?"
"Yes, the lovely Mrs. Strang is a very sick woman, Eddie. I'm not a dike but I have to admit there was a little bit of temptation there."
"I guess there's a lot I don't know about you," Eddie said, looking at her with a bemused expression.
"There is. That's one of the few real advantages to living in the Village. You can admit things like that. Do I shock you?"
"You do."
"Want to call this whole bit off?"
"No, I figure you really need a man, now," he said. The idea of Selma sleeping with another woman seemed like an affront to his male pride.
"Because of what I said about Kathy? Believe me, Eddie, as long as there's men like you around, I won't go gay. There's just one other thing. As long as you're living with me, I expect you to leave other women alone. I'm a jealous bitch when it comes to sharing my men."
"OK, Selma, the same goes with me."
"I told you we were both alike."
They went out that afternoon and Selma took him to a run-down shop where she bought a second hand sofa that unfolded into a bed. Eddie wanted to buy a new one but she wouldn't hear of it. She called up some friends of hers and several men and their girls came and helped him move the sofa up to her apartment. Eddie was surprised and a little disappointed at the matter-of-fact way they accepted his living with Selma. He really was a small-town boy at heart, felt that half the fun of living in sin was in shocking people. He couldn't help wondering if any of the others had slept with Selma.
They were a typical Village group. Most of them were gonna be artists of one kind or another. They were gonna write a book, gonna act, or gonna paint some time in the far-off future. In the meantime they devoted their energy to criticizing people who actually were doing something.
Sitting around on the floor of Selma's apartment, they emptied a case of beer and bounced conversation off the white-washed walls. Dear God, could they talk talk! Three quarters of the time Eddie didn't have the faintest idea what they were saying, and he doubted that they did. Selma and he were the only ones who kept quiet. Every once in awhile she would glance in his direction and wink at him.
Finally, when he was ready to drown in a turgid sea of words, once of them suggested they go to a bar. Eddie seconded the idea with alacrity and they left in a noisy, trampling herd to Paul's Place, that month's favorite drinking place.
"Good Lord, Selma, I thought I could run off at the mouth. But these characters never stop!" he said as they walked along behind the rest of the group.
"You haven't seen anything yet. This is the place where they have the champion BS artists in the world."
Paul's Place was an old cellar beneath a tenement cleverly made up to look like an old cellar. Dust an inch thick covered the floors and tables, which consisted of raw planks laid over barrels. Some refugees from the junkie ward on Riker's Island made halfhearted attempts to force music out of their instruments, but barely were able to make themselves heard over the shrill gabbing of the packed crowd. Clouds of thick, yellow smoke swirled over bearded and pony-tailed heads.
Pushing their way to the bar, they ordered great schooners of dark beer. Ignoring the continuing gabble around him, Eddie gratefully sank his face into the wide brim of his beer and let the nut-brown brew flow down his throat. The close heat of the jammed bodies, the aftermath of the various sexual adventures he had in the past two days, combined with the ceaseless flood of words, caused him to slide deeper and deeper info a well of somnolence.
Just as he was about to doze off the crowd stilled slightly, and Selma nudged him awake.
"You won't want to miss this, Eddie. Bill Rack is going to recite one of his poems."
"Huh? What?" Eddie said, jerking his head up in time to see a red-bearded satyr wearing a grimy pair of khakis and a sweat-shirt climb unsteadily onto the top of a table, holding a nearly empty bottle of red wine in one hand. The band gave a little ripple in acknowledgement of his feat and he waved the hand holding the bottle at the crowd.
"The Lust Game," he intoned in slurred words, wavering from side to side on his teetering perch. Gulping down another belt of wine, he tore into his poem, part of which went something like this:
"Passion Slaves! Hell-cats in Sin! Girls in khaki!
You seek passion in words, in song and in paint!
Yet find no passion
For your souls are cold and dead.
I will give you passion, bloodless whores, Squealing eunuchs, cow-brained cud-chewers!
My words will blaze in your empty heads, My hatred will burn in your dead eyes, My lust will liven your puny loins, Damn, you, damn you, cursed sin devils!"
As the wine in his bottle emptied into his gaping gullet, his language became fouler and fouler as he cursed the awed crowd. When he finished the wine, he let out a whoop and slung the bottle at the crowd. The bartender and musicians pulled him off the table then in a swirl of swinging fists and kicking feet. The battle raged from one side of the room to the other until the bartender was able to break a beer bottle over the poet's head. The crowd applauded and went back to talking.
"Old Bill wasn't in top form tonight," Selma noted. "Usually it takes them a lot longer to put him out. Hey, you listening to me, Eddie?"
His head in a pool of beer, Eddie had finally succumbed to boredom and sleep.
They woke him up, and the rest of the evening passed in a blurred morass of verbosity. Dawn was lighting the eastern skies when the party finally broke up and Selma and he had the apartment to themselves. For the first time since his discharge, Eddie spent the night chastely.
When he awoke the next morning, Selma was sketching away at her easel. Eddie watched for a half hour after his morning coffee, but soon grew bored.
"Hey, Selma, what do you say we cut out and take in a movie or something?"
"No, I don't want to waste any more time. Why don't you go by yourself?"
"OK, I'll see you later."
He walked around the Village, but it was a Sunday morning and all the bars were closed. Finding a subway, he took a train to Times Square. Forty-second Street was deserted except for some straggling tourists, its littered streets dingy in the daylight. Eddie found a movie he wanted to see and spent the afternoon there.
Leaving the movie he walked along the street, looking in at displays of fishing tackle in sporting good stores and thumbing through paperbacks in the bookstores. A reaction to the pace he'd followed in the last few days set in, making him feel listless. Buying a couple of the more gaudy books, he went back to the Village.
While riding the subway, he tried to concentrate on one of the books he'd bought, but it was long-winded and tedious. Bored, he put it into his pocket and in desperation focused his attention on the glittering advertisements set into the walls and alongside the windows. Tawny-skinned goddesses in snug bathing suits smilingly smoked cigarettes on sunny sea-shores, their laughing faces turned to grinning young men.
That wife of Strang's, he thought, looked better than any of the women in the brightly colored pictures. He found it hard to believe that he'd actually had a woman like that. Kathy, that's what Selma had called her, was one of those women you never really expected to find in bed with you.
Not that there was anything wrong with Selma. In a lot of ways, she was a better woman than Kathy. That body and face of Kathy, though, was something you just couldn't pass by.
He had to have her again.
No need for Selma to know anything about it, though. It was nice being shacked up with someone and knowing that you were going to have a woman anytime you wanted one. Of course it was just a temporary thing, their living together. In a few weeks, he'd have to fuck off. What then?
Get a job someplace that was for sure. Visit home for awhile and then come back to the big city. That's where the big money is. The big money and the best poon. Somehow, he couldn't work up any enthusiasm over the prospect.
The train roared into West Forth Street in a blizzard of discarded candy wrappers. Pushing his way past the people who came flooding through the door, he got on the platform and made his way to the exist closest to Erwin Street.
Selma was still working when he came in. The floor around her was covered with sheets of newsprint. Not paying any attention to him, she kept marking the white expanse of paper before her with rapid strokes of charcoal.
She was a good-looking woman, all right. Maybe a little thin around the butt but that could be cured by a few meals. Thin as she was, she strained the cloth of her pants pleasantly. It would be easy to step up behind her and loosen those dungarees and slide them down. She was his woman and it would be easy.
Too damn easy.
"Why don't you knock off? Come on, we'll go out and grab some chow."
"Oh, is it that late already?"
"Late enough. We can go to some restaurant and get some Italian food and work on a bottle of wine."
'Tt'd be cheaper to buy something and bring it up here."
"Who's worrying about money? I'm loaded, remember?"
"I'm serious, Eddie. The few hundred you have won't last long if you don't watch yourself."
"I thought I told you I'm taking a vacation? Don't worry about my stake."
Shrugging her shoulders, she stepped over to the closet, slipped out of the dungarees and took out a pair of bermudas. The off-hand way she stripped before him made him catch his breath. He stepped over to her, turning her toward him and let both hands rest on the swelling curve of her rounded buttocks.
"Hey, I thought you said you wanted something to eat?" she asked, leaning back in his grip.
"We can eat later," he said, squeezing the bulging panties and pulling her against him.
"Hmmm, you're nothing but a sex-machine, Eddie. Always raring to go, aren't you?"
"That's the way it is."
"Why don't you take off my panties as long as you're holding me there?"
"Good thinking," he said, shoving his hands in between the fabric and the warm, soft mounds and walking her backwards to the waiting couch.
The short, explosive coupling was over in a few minutes. The little bout sharpened Eddie's appetite and he had a double portion of spaghetti when they got to the restaurant.
The next day, he went uptown and got his new suits from the tailor. He really felt like a civilian now, they were the sharpest clothes he'd ever bought.
Selma had gone out earlier, and when she got back she told him that the modeling job had come through. They celebrated by making the rounds of the bars in the Village. It was the wrong neighborhood for Eddie's outfit. His sharp creases and well-tailored looks stood out in glaring contrast to the Bohemian garb of most people in the bars they went to.
Selma was already out on her job when he awoke the next morning. He lay around until noon, making several attempts to read some of the books she had stacked around. But it was impossible for him to understand them. Taking out his wallet, he counted out his roll.
Two hundred and sixty-seven bucks.
Not bad, and he still had the three hundred he sent home. Damned good, as a matter-of-fact. Here he was, young, holding pretty good, shacked up with a good looking babe and in New York, the biggest town in the country. It was the kind of set-up he'd always dreamed of. But somehow it seemed flat.
He needed something to do.
Putting on his new suit, he left the room and started climbing the stairs, going where he'd know all morning he'd be going. He knocked at Strang's door but there wasn't any answer. Damn it, just his luck.
Where to now? he asked himself. Another movie? That would be a hell of a way to spend his time, going from one fool movie house to another. Drinking with some rum-dums in a local bar didn't appeal to him either. The creeps in the neighborhood got on his nerves with all of their high-flown words. He had the impression that the bunch with Selma that night were making fun of him in some kind of way.
Too bad none of the guys he knew in the Navy were around town. Of course there was Chuck. It'd be good chewing the fat with him again. He'd like to show off Selma to him, too. Half the fun in having a good shack-up going for you was bragging about it with your friends.
Maybe Chuck had liberty that night. He'd try to call him up at the RecSta and see if he could get something going. Selma should be able to fix him up without any trouble. He'd have to remember to keep mom about Kathy, Chuck might have plans for her himself and get edgy if he knew that Eddie had already jumped her. You never knew how guys were going to act when it came to women.
Calling up the RecSta from a corner drug-store, he had the usual trouble finding anyone who could help him. A Wave answered and told him to wait. She was gone from the phone so long he had to pay another dime.
"Hello, are you still there?" her voice finally asked.
"Yeah, go ahead."
"Is that Huzak, Charles, quartermaster second."
"That's him."
"I'm awfully sorry, but he's not here anymore."
"Hell, you mean he's shipped out already?"
"No, they transferred him to St. Albans Naval Hospital two days ago, according to the records."
"What? What happened to him?"
"I'm sorry, I don't have that information. You'll have to check with the hospital. I have the number here, if you want it."
"Yeah, give it to me. Damn it, no wonder I never heard from him."
Calling the number the Wave gave him, he found out that Chuck was under observation for possible skull concussions occasioned in a mugging on Saturday night. Yes, he could have visitors, the hospital said and gave Eddie directions to get there.
On his way to the subway, Eddie sensed a new air of danger lurking in the buildings and behind the blank stares of the people he passed. New York was a tough town and you forgot that at your peril. Chuck was no sap and knew how to handle himself, but that hadn't helped him.
St. Alban was way to hell and gone out in Queens. Eddie rode the subway to the end of the line, and took a bus. It was three o'clock before he got to the front gate. The wards were laid out in long, single-story barrack-type structures. He found Chuck sitting next to his bed in a Navy bathrobe, his head wrapped in bandages, looking vacantly out the window at the grass-lined walks.
"Hey, hello, Chuck," Eddie said.
"Oh, Eddie. What are you doing here?"
"I just found out what happened. How do you feel? What do the docs say about you?"
"They say I'm pretty lucky. The cops who found me said I was pretty lucky too. I guess I must be a lucky guy."
"How long are they going to keep you here?"
"A couple of weeks. I'll be all right then, they say."
"What happened, anyway?"
"Oh, I got smashed and somebody rolled me."
"The dirty bastards! Did they get them?"
"The cops have an idea. They think the bartender fingered me in the last joint I was in, but they can't prove anything."
"Yeah? Listen, Chuck, tell me where the joint is and I'll look the son of a bitch up."
"Forget it, Eddie. It was my own damn-fool fault. It doesn't really matter."
"Look, Eddie, you're a good kid and all that, but don't go getting involved in my business."
"OK, if that's the way you want it," Eddie said a little angrily. Where did Chuck get off calling him a kid?
"Take it easy, don't go getting mad. How'd you do that night?"
"Terrific! I'm shacking up with that broad we met. Remember, the one you asked about Strang?"
"You're living in that same house!" Chuck said, jerking his head up with surprise.
"Yeah, crazy deal, ain't it? Say, I moved in there like nothing at all. That free love business is great stuff. That's a nice looking piece when you get her out of that crummy outfit she wears. I'll have her fix you up with something when you get out of here."
"Say, uh, did you see Strang's--I mean the girl that's up in his place?"
"Sure did. One hell of a hot-looking broad, ain't she?"
"She's no broad! Don't you go talking about Kathy that way?" Chuck said, flushing red with anger. "Hey, take it easy!"
"She's not that way, she's straight and clean and decent!" Chuck shouted, rising to his feet, his eyes desperate. A corpsman a few beds down came hurrying toward them.
"Yeah, sure, Chuck. Don't get excited, I didn't mean anything when I said that," Eddie said. Jeez, he thought, that crack on the head may have really screwed him up. Damn good thing he didn't mention that little bout he had with Kathy or he'd have started climbing the walls for sure.
"Calm down, Huzak," the corpsman said, taking out a needle and pushing Chuck down to the bed. "You'd better take off, Mac. You're just getting him excited, and with that knock on the head he can't afford getting shook up."
The spurt of emotion was over and Chuck allowed the corpsman to roll up his sleeve and make the injection.
"She's a good woman. It isn't true, isn't true," he muttered, his vacant eyes staring into nothingness.
Troubled, Eddie left. Chuck must have been hit pretty hard. There wasn't anything that he could do, it was up to the medics. He'd come again next week, maybe Chuck'd be feeling better by that time.
The trip back seemed even longer than it had coming out. Finally they left the hinterlands of Queens and the train burrowed beneath the East River. Eddie got out at the Times Square station and found himself in a squirming, sweating, pushing mass of foul-tempered, impatient people.
It was five o'clock and the rush hour was in full swing.
Even the most hardened New Yorker blanches at the thought of that miserable time. The giant buildings vomit out streams of homeward bound employees like ants deserting their nests. Pressing together haunch to haunch, they scurry through the streets and disappear into the subways like water running into a drain.
When the door to his car opened, a phalanx of sweating people came surging into him like the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers, driving Eddie back in. Through adroit use of his elbows and shoulders, he managed to bull his way out.
A sign said to follow the overhead green lights. Swinging into place in a thick column of people going his way, he made his way down the steps to a platform packed with slack-jawed subway riders waiting to be herded into their trains.
The dips and perverts in the mob were the only ones who enjoyed the situation. Eddie felt like turning and going topside to some bar where he could wait until the subways were less crowded, but it was impossible to escape the current of the throng behind him. A downtown train pulled up at the station, and when its doors opened Eddie was swept in as if he had an avalanche at his back.
Except for the few feet of tepid air at the top of the train, every cubic inch was crammed full with struggling humanity. Freeing one arm, he managed to get a grip on a sweat-moistened pole in the center. A young, light-skinned Negress was wedged between him and the pole, her sharp pointed breasts pressing against him like twin torpedo heads. The thick, glossy black hair on the top of her head came to just beneath his nose. A musty, sultry odor seemed to pervade the area around her.
Better watch your step, Eddie, he told himself. No sense in taking a chance on starting some kind of race riot. She might be one of those Black Muslims he'd been hearing about who were supposed to kill a white man a day for their religion or something.
He tried to concentrate on the ads and ignore the fact that her legs were touching his and that her belly was pressed against him just beneath his belt-buckle as the doors closed and the train jerked to a start, impelling him even closer.
The train traveled about a hundred feet past the station and shuddered to a halt. Everyone groaned and swayed together. After a few minutes, the train moved ahead a couple of dozen feet and ground to another long halt.
Eddie could feel sweat gathering at his arm pits and along the flanks of his legs. The Negress moved her shoulders restlessly, making both breasts rub against him. Above them, the fans lazily rotated, making the only sound in the filled car.
It was a ridiculous situation. He tried to think of something else but that was impossible. His desire was mounting and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
She must have been aware of his problem, but she gave no sign of it. Lord, all he needed now was for her to start yelling. They'd call a cop and drag him off to the brig. Maybe she'd pull a knife or something. These thoughts helped ease the situation somewhat.
Then the train started moving again. Lurching against her, he felt every inch of her hot body plastered against his. She began moving her loins and belly in a short up and down movement, leaving no doubt that she was aware of his desire and welcomed it. Gritting his teeth, he felt the situation grow more and more desperate. Looking down, he could see that she was shaking with silent laughter at his awkward predicament.
Damn the little black bitch! She knew he wouldn't be able to take much more of this!
The train finally made Thirty-fourth Street. Some of the people got off but more got on.
At Fourteenth Street, she decided to take a hand and hurry things along. Her back arched against the pole and the men nearby them were looking askance, thinking of the fun they would have telling their wives about this when they got home.
"Disgusting, disgusting," some old biddy dressed in what looked like Tugboat Annie's cast-off clothes said.
When the train came jolted to a stop at the West Fourth station, the girl darted out of the door. For a second he stood there, his embarassment obvious to the leering riders, then he ran through the door as it started closing.
He could see her bright red dress climbing the stairs at the end of the station. Shoving his way through the crowd with a single-mindedness that would have been a credit to a native New Yorker, he kept her in sight. She was about fifty feet ahead of him, walking with a hip-swinging gait on her spiked shoes that made passing men snap their heads around like owls.
Eddie had been too close to pay much attention to her looks in the subway but now he could see that she had a small but voluptuous body shaped for sex. Her waist was tiny, her hips big and round and her legs slim. He was already familiar with the front of her body.
"Hey, hold on there," Eddie said, grabbing her by the elbow and walking beside her.
"Hold on? What you want me to hold on, Man? Ain't I been doing enough of that?" she chuckled, baring the gold tooth set in the front of her mouth.
"How about finishing what you started?"
"You complaining? What you expect for a fifteen cent subway token?"
"I ain't complaining but that's a hell of a way to leave somebody. Let's continue the bit."
"I don't know. Maybe."
"I mean like what's it worth to you?"
Just another hustler, like he figured. If he was smart, he'd leave her flat. What the hell, why should he pay for it when he had a steady piece with Selma back in the apartment.
"What'll five get me?"
"Five! The sweat off my butt, that's what it'll get you. Ten and I'll finish the job."
"OK. Where'll we go?"
"This looks like as good a spot as any," she said, turning into a tenement. "You have a room here?" he asked, following her inside.
"Ten bucks, you ain't getting no bed, boy."
Uppidy bitch, he thought. If he wasn't so hungry for her--! Her round, ripe rump was swinging back and forth just in front of him so he gave it a resounding whack.
"Hey, Man! Knock off that crap!"
"How we going to do this?"
"You'll find out. We's gonna do it Harlem style."
They climbed up to the roof, staying inside the door that led out. On the floor below them, somebody was playing the radio. The tile floor hadn't seen a mop in years and was black with footsteps. She looked around and finding an empty can that had once contained tar, she set it against the wall.
"That's what we need, Boy."
"I don't get it."
"You will," she said, hitching up her dress until she had it gathered in a bunch at her waist. Her tawny skin was like burnished gold, warm and soft-looking. Slender legs mounted the can and spread apart as she propped her back against the wall. She wore nothing under the dress.
"Well, what are you waiting for?"
"Here?"
"Why not? What's the matter? Can't make it any more," she said, the gold tooth glinting. "Suppose somebody comes."
"Let 'em. Who gives a damn."
"Hell, you can't do it that way, can you."
"Sure I can."
"OK, I guess I'll try anything once," Eddie said, loosening his clothing. It was crazy as hell but the whole idea of taking the woman this way, almost in public and in that outlandish position, excited him tremendously. There was a tough city manner about her that challenged his masculinity.
"Just a second," she said, holding out her light-colored palm, a look of amused contempt in her eyes.
"I'll pay you when I'm finished."
"No dice, Man. You come across now or I haul it away. Plenty of others want this, you know."
"OK," he said, muffling his anger and taking out a ten. This black whore sure was taking him. Damn it, he couldn't pass her by at this stage of the game! Once he got between those smooth, golden thighs, he'd make her change her tune.
"OK, do your stuff," she said, placing both hands on his shoulders and pulling him to her.
"Wait a second. I'm the kind of a guy who likes to see what he's getting into," he said, unbuttoning her dress.
"Hey, cat, what you doing? I'm clean, you don't have to worry about that."
"It's these I've been thinking about." He spread the dress apart and both conical copper-hued breasts spilled out of their confines.
"You're a breast man, huh?"
"When I find a pair like these, I am." The pointed nipples looked as if they were carved out of mahogany and felt as if they were molded from natural rubber. Hunching against her, he dropped his hands to her thighs and lifted her up.
"That's it, you got the idea. Easy does it now," she said, wrapping both arms around his neck.
"Damn it, move it a little," he said, shifting her up and down in front of him.
"How's that, Honey?"
"Yeah, yeah!"
"Oh, oh. Here we go!"
She began jerking her torso rapidly, engulfing him with her body. His bent legs strained to hold her against the wall, his fingers digging into her soft fleshy thighs. There wasn't much he could do in that position but he didn't have to. The way she controlled her muscles would arouse the envy of a belly dancer.
She welded herself to him, her sharp teeth nipping his neck. The sweat was pouring off him by this time, his arms ached from holding her. Slowly he eased her down to the grimy floor, forcing her on her back.
"Hey, what-" she started to cry.
Now she was under him, squirming and twisting on the cold tiles, trying to push him off her with both hands. But he was having none of that. This was what he wanted, this tough little black whore under him, scratching and fighting even as her loins kept up their frantic motion.
"Stop it, you crazy ofay!" she gasped, sliding across the floor, impelled by his fervid drive.
Quickening his pace, he held her down and thrust again and again into her supple body, the creases of his new suit soggy with sweat and dirty from the filthy floor. None of this mattered, nothing mattered, nothing except her hot, excited body and the heady, heavy smell she exuded, and her gasping breath and feebly fighting hands beating at his shoulders.
"Oh, you white bastard, you lousy ofay!" she groaned.
Ignoring her, he drove on. Faster and faster. "Oh, more, more, you crazy stud!" He obliged.
Then they merged together in a bursting explosion of flesh that left them weak and helpless on the floor, drenched in sweat and covered with grime.
Applause broke out.
Looking up, Eddie saw that there were a bunch of people standing on the steps, apparently tenants of the building. One of them, a beatnik type complete with beard and sandals, was strumming a guitar. Eddie realized that he'd been supplying a beat to his own actions for the last few minutes without his knowing it.
"Good show, Stud," one of the girls said. Tall and red-haired, she was grinning at him with appreciation.
Hurriedly rearranging his clothing, Eddie managed a quick mock bow and ran down the stairs, face burning red with embarrassment as they gave out with another burst of applause.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"HEY, YOU WHITE STUD! You done ripped my dress! Hey, come back here!"
Feet clattering down the steps, he rushed pell-mell down the stairway feeling like a first class jerk. He should have made her take him to her room, or better still he should have passed her by in the first place.
The pedestrians on the sidewalks glanced at his disheveled appearance and gave him a wide berth. Erwin Street was only a few blocks away. Damn it, he would pull a stunt like that right in the same neighborhood where he lived! Each of the tenants who had watched him would probably spend the afternoon talking about the white creep who was banging a black girl in the hallway with the whole damned house looking on.
Selma was working away at the easel when he walked into the apartment. That was about all she did all the time now, drawing.
"Hey, what happened to you?" she asked.
"Got caught in that damn subway. Just got back from your job? How did it go?" Stepping into the bathroom, he began stripping. Damn it, there was a small tear at the elbow of the coat and this was only the first time he wore it.
"Not bad. I had a chance to catch up on my reading in the hour poses."
"I still don't see how you can be so off-hand about that job. Did anybody make a pass at you?"
"Oh, sure. In the cafeteria. It's not considered sporting to make a pass at a model while she's posing."
"I'm surprised you're still drawing like that. Ain't you tired of all that art stuff after working at it all day?" he asked, running water into the tub.
"Tired? When I get tired of it, I'll stop trying. What did you do today?"
"Oh, I went to see Chuck. He's laid up in the hospital at St. Albans with a concussion or something."
"How did it happen?"
"Got himself mugged when he left here. I think he must be hurt pretty bad. He was talking wild as hell when I left him. He says that they're going to let him go in a few weeks, though."
"Too bad. He seemed like a nice guy. Let that be a lesson to you, Eddie. This can be a rough town to get drunk in."
Eddie sat in the tub without answering and let the water fill up around him. The plaster was cracking on the walls and ceiling and every time somebody in the house used the toilet, the pipes shuddered and groaned like the Day of Judgment. A half-hour later he climbed out of the tub and went into the other room, dripping wet and naked except for a towel hanging around his neck.
"Watch it, you're dripping on my drawings," Selma said.
"Oh, yeah. Got anything to eat around the place?"
"There's some hamburgers in the ice-box. I'll cook them up in a little while. How about posing for me? You're dressed for it."
"I was thinking we could take off someplace and eat out. Maybe go to a movie or something."
"Can't do it, Eddie. I've wasted enough time away from my work. I intend staying in all night. Why don't you go yourself? Unless you'd like to stay around and, uh, you know."
"I think I'll just go out and grab a few beers."
In the next few weeks, Eddie fell into a routine of bar-hopping and movie going that was relieved only when he took Selma at night. He tried to interest himself in Selma's art but he just wasn't the type. He was getting irritated with her single-minded absorption in drawing. She took it so damn seriously!
Gabbing with the local barflies was a drag, too. They kept using words and expressions he didn't understand, subtly putting him down whenever he ventured an opinion. His stake was running low, too and he knew he'd have to start sweating a job damn soon.
The prospect of going to work didn't enthrall him.
He would see the hordes of people leaving their jobs at five, fighting their way home through the subways so they could watch television until it was time to sleep. Several times he bought a newspaper and looked at the help wanted ads, but he held back following them up.
Selma started bringing up the matter of work too. He was going to have to do something soon and the quicker he started, the better. He agreed that she was right but still made no move, knowing he still had the money he'd sent home to fall back on. It became more and more of an effort for him to do the simplest things and he slept daily until well into the afternoon.
Once he visited Chuck at the hospital but they didn't seem to have much to say to each other. He was a civilian now and the Navy was getting farther and farther away from his life. About the only thing Chuck wanted to talk about was Strang's wife. He kept saying what a wonderful woman she was and how he was a sap to have run off from her back in college.
When Eddie left, both knew he wouldn't be coming back.
Three times he climbed up the stairs to Strang's apartment, hoping to catch Kathy alone, but nobody answered the bell. Once she passed him on the stairs but Strang was right behind her. She looked through him as if he were made of glass and went on.
He was laying on the couch one day, reading the previous day's paper, when Selma came in. Looking around distastefully she bustled about, picking up scraps of paper and cigar butts.
"I don't know why you can't at least keep the place clean during the day. You don't have anything else to do with your time. Why don't you at least open one of the windows and let some of that stinking cigar smoke out?"
"What's eating you? Oh, yeah, I forgot it's your time of the month. How long's it going to last, anyway?"
"That's all you think about, isn't it? Nothing's important to you except getting your sex when you want it and how you want it."
"Oh for Pete's sake, knock it off, will you? You're acting as if we were married or something."
"Married! I'd have to be out of my mind to do a stupid thing like that!"
"Then what the hell are you bitching about? I'm paying the rent in this dump, ain't I? What the hell else do you expect?"
"And that's all you're doing. Don't get any ideas about owning me, Eddie. Nobody owns me."
"Who'd want to?"
"Maybe you'd like to move out? Go ahead, I managed to get by before I met you."
"Yeah, I can guess how."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean the suckers you had before me!"
"You dirty-minded bastard!" she said in a cold, intense voice.
"OK, OK, I'm sorry I said that," he muttered, getting up. "I'm going out awhile 'til you cool off."
"If you're going out at least shave, for God's sake. You're starting to look like a ass!"
"Damn it, stop nagging me!"
"Eddie, can't you see it's no good, your laying around like this all day, loafing and drinking? If you were doing something, I might be able to see it. But you just go from one bar and movie to another."
"Do something?" he asked, pulling on his sport coat. "You mean play games like you do with all that art crap?"
Whirling around, she went into the bathroom and closed the door. He was sorry they'd had another of their frequent arguments. No sense in sticking around, though. They'd just start in again. The best thing to do was to take off for a while 'til she cooled off.
It was too bad the way things were going, he thought as he went down the stairs. Just one damn argument after another. It might be best to leave her. But moving would be a lot of trouble. Next week, maybe next week he'd do something about it.
He'd been drinking in a neighborhood bar, but a change of pace might wake him up. Something different. There was a joint nearby that looked unusual as hell. Fran's it was called, he'd passed it several times. It looked like a cave from the outside but he'd noticed some good-looking stuff doing in there. It was several days since he had balled it with Selma. Maybe if he tried something different, he'd get out of his doldrums.
As soon as he entered the place he realized that he was wasting his time. There was nothing except women in the joint, all right. Even the bartenders were women. They looked at him distastefully when he took a seat at the bar.
Dikes, every one of them.
"What'll it be, Mac?" the bar-maid, a husky short-haired brunette, asked him in a gravelly voice.
"Bourbon and water. Old Taylor."
As she searched for the bottle, Eddie looked around the place. Walls, bar, tables, chairs, everything in the joint was painted a shiny black with strips of red trim around the edges. The other customers sat in pairs or alone, watching him with amusement.
When he got his drink he poured it down his throat and signalled for another one. No harm in killing a little time in this place. Might be good for some laughs. It'd be something to tell the folks about back home, too.
So this was what a Lesbian hang-out looked like, he thought, gazing around at the customers. Seemed a shame, some of them were damn good looking broads. Maybe he could make some kind of connection here if he played it right. Nothing to lose, anyway.
The door to the street opened and two more came in. One was a short, trim blonde, the other a tall, stacked red-head who looked familiar to him. She seemed to recognize Eddie too and pointed him out to her companion. Her clear laughter came ringing across the room and he remembered where he'd seen her before. She was one of those who had been watching him cop the colored girl.
Laura Welsey was her name and she wasn't a pure dike, not by any means. However, she did like a change of pace once in awhile and when this little blonde had made a pass at her getting off the subway, she decided to take her up on it. Seeing Eddie at the bar and remembering his performance on the stairwell above her apartment made her think that perhaps she'd have been better off getting herself a man for the night.
"See that guy at the bar?" she asked the blonde. "He was using the hallway of the place I live to ploy a little black tart a few weeks ago. He had the whole place watching them."
"He looks like a crude type," the blonde replied. She didn't have any use at all for men, was wondering how long it would be before she could lure Laura into bed with her.
"Let's go over and have a drink with him. He looks as if he'd be good for a few laughs."
"I'd rather not. I have to put up with men all day at my job without having anything to do with them after hours," the blonde said, not liking the idea of competition.
"Well, I'm going over." When she walked over to Eddie, the blonde had no choice but to follow.
"Hello, Stud," Laura said, taking a seat next to him. "I was just telling my friend here about you. I was watching you ball that Negress a few weeks back. Remember?"
"Yeah, I'd been kind of hoping it would have been forgotten by this time," Eddie said.
"Why? You did pretty good. One of the cats watching you even made up a song about it."
"Hot damn!"
"How come you grabbed her there."
"That was the way she wanted it. Besides, I was in a hurry."
"You sure were! Mind if we join you, Stud."
"Why not? My name is Eddie Chase, by the way."
"I like Stud better. I'm Laura Welsey and this is--what's your name."
"Eleanor Cleavers."
"Hello, Ely, Laura. I'm a little surprised to find anybody to talk to in here. I get the impression that I'm not wanted."
"You're not, Stud. This is a dike bar and they don't have much use for men," Laura said.
"Yeah, I figured that out by myself. How about you two girls? I hope you're not lezzies?"
"Oh, I'm sort of both ways. A little gay but I don't mind a guy like you who looks as if he knows the score in bed."
"How about you, Ely?"
"Am I a dike? You're God-damn right I am. All I've ever gotten from men is trouble. I've never seen a man yet whom I didn't hate and despise."
"Every man?"
"Every miserable, conceited male egotist it's been my misfortune to meet," Ely said, glaring at Eddie.
"This is damned interesting, talking to you," Eddie said, signaling for another drink. "We don't have any lesbians up in my old home town, Stubbin's Corners."
"Where's that? Siberia?" Ely sneered.
"Vermont, near the New Hampshire border."
"Vermont! God, you mean there's actually people living in Vermont? I always thought that it was just a joke, like Lower Sldbbovia. So you say there's no dikes up your way? That shows how much you know. I bet there's plenty!"
"Oh, I'm not saying there never was any. We did have one in town, back maybe five or six years ago."
"Really? What happened?" Laura asked.
"Oh, she was a school teacher from up-state. Naturally, most folks didn't have much to do with her, seeing how she was from out of town. They don't go much for strangers back home."
"I can guess."
"Anyway, she used to have a little club with some oi the girls in the school. It was a high school, you see. Go on trips, stay over night at her place, things like that."
"I'll bet they learned a lot from her."
"That they did. I guess she had a hell of a good time for maybe a year or so. Then one of the girls let the cat out of the bag and told her mother"
"Lousy, loud-mouthed little bitch!" Ely said.
"Well," Eddie said," when her father heard about it he was mad as hell, as you can imagine. Jim Turner, that was his name. First off, Old Jim was going to call up the principal and the cops and everybody else. He did try to get hold of the principal, but it was a Friday night and he was out. Then Jim, he got another idea. The county's dry but there's a place everybody used to go where they'd serve liquor."
"Lousy hypocrites!" Ely muttered.
"Go on, Stud. This is beginning to sound like something out of a Faulkner novel," Laura said.
"So anyway Jim has a drink, then he calls everybody around and tells them about what his daughter said about the teacher. First off, everybody thinks he's kidding but he convinces them. I don't mind telling you they were mad!"
"Lousy farmers! Don't tell me about hick-town boobs, I come from a small town myself," Ely said.
"Yeah? I thought you were supposed to be a big city girl, from the way you were talking," Eddie said.
"Go on, what happened?" Laura asked, eyes bright with excitement.
"Well, this dike teacher, she wasn't a bad looking woman-I guess a dike's a woman, aint she? They were all pretty drunk, you know so they figured they'd cure her. Cure her of being a dike, that is.
"The swine, the filthy swine!" Ely said.
"I was just a kid in high school then but I followed them. They were a rowdy bunch, farmers and mill hands and they went yelling down the street with me trailing them. They came to her house and broke in. By this time almost everybody in town heard about what was going on and we all stood in front of the house. Talk about screams! You could hear her clear across town!"
"Didn't anybody try to stop them?" Laura asked.
"Oh, the druggist started yapping about how they should stop it. Damn fool even ran into the house and got the hell beat out of himself for his troubles. After awhile it got quiet, then they all came out. They let the doctor go in then."
"What happened?" Laura asked again, leaning forward. Ely didn't say anything but she was rigid with rage.
"The next day they took her off in an ambulance. Never did hear anything else about her."
"Didn't the police do anything about it?" Laura said, licking her lips.
"No, there wasn't any trouble. What the hell, it wasn't as if it had been a regular woman. She was only one of those dikes," Eddie said, grinning pleasantly at Ely.
"You brute! You animal!" Ely hissed.
"Wow. Some story. I'm glad I'm here in the Village. If I were up in your God-forsaken part of the country they'd probably burn me at the stake or something, Stud."
"Well, something as good-looking as you, it'd be the something they'd be more likely to do."
"I guess you were sorry you couldn't get in with the rest of them, weren't you?"
"like I said, she was a good looking woman."
"Laura! You can't stay here with him, not now," Ely said, getting off the bar stool. "He's nothing but a vicious animal, a brute! You heard what he said. He's just as bad as those men he's been telling us about!"
"I don't know, I kind of like Stud here."
"What's the matter, Ely? Afraid of a little competition?" Eddie said, taking another belt of the bourbon.
"Say, that's the idea," Laura giggled. "Competition. You can both try and get me into bed with you."
"You can't be serious," Ely said.
"Why not?"
"I'm game," Eddie said.
"That's the spirit, Stud. That's what made America great, you know. Competition. At least that's what my boss keeps telling me when he's not trying to put his hand up my dress. Old goat!"
"Well, there's your trouble," Eddie said. "You've been around that old boss of yours. What you need is some strong, young blood like me."
"Cocky, aren't you?"
"You'd be surprised."
"How about you, Ely? Do you think you can make me happier in bed than Stud here?"
"Listen, Laura, don't play games with me," Ely said. "Send this clown on his way and come up to my place. You won't be sorry! It takes a woman to understand another woman. He's just like all men, able only to think of himself!"
"No, no, I don't buy that talk," Eddie said. The conversation was amusing him greatly. The little blonde dike was ready to spit fire, she was so mad.
"Don't listen to him, Laura. Come with me. I'm good ,damned good. Look at me, look at my body. Are you going to pass up a figure like mine for him?"
"Hmmm. You've got a good point there, Ely. Two good points, as a matter-of-fact. What have you got to say about that, Stud?" Laura said, thoroughly enjoying herself.
She really couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted a male or female bed partner that night. That had always been her trouble, she couldn't make up her mind. Ely was a hot little number, all right, with really first class breasts and clear, smooth skin. She was hot for her, too and that was good. It would mean that she would have to let Laura be the man in bed.
Laura always enjoyed that.
On the other hand, there was Eddie. He was all male and young. Remembering the joyous sounds that the Negro girl had given when he copped her in the hallway, Laura took another look at Eddie. A close look.
She liked what she saw.
A male animal, nothing more, nothing less. He wanted her, but he wasn't about to beg her to put out for him. There was a bright, lean hardness about him that seemed ready to burst into violent action at any moment. He would probably be a real wild man in action.
"I don't know why you'd want to waste your time with her," Eddie said. "Hell, what good's a woman to another woman? You just don't have the right equipment."
"You do, I suppose?"
"You should know. You saw me with that girl back in your place. She seem satisfied?"
"I'll tell you what. Let's go over to my pad, both of you. You can take turns and we'll see which one of you is the best. Maybe we can figure out something we can do together. How about it, Ely? Interested?"
"Not with this creep."
"Come on. It'll be for kicks!"
Laura and Eddie walked out. Ely let them get to the door before catching up with them. The strange group walked through the street, Eddie and Laura laughing while Ely sullenly hung back. Stopping at a liquor store they bought a fifth of bourbon and proceeded to Laura's place.
Her apartment was on the fifth floor. When she took out her key, she pointed up at the landing where he'd grabbed the whore and grinned at him. Everything felt a little strange and off-beat to Eddie. He was excited and uncomfortable at the same time. The little blonde dike made him a little nervous. Nervous and horny.
Opening the door, Laura motioned them in. It was almost a replica of Selma's place although much more elaborately furnished. A couch-bed combination was unfolded, the sheets rumpled and musty. Various ill-done drawings hung from the wall along with the usual collection of driftwood, Chianti bottles and assorted semi-bohemian knick-knacks. A television screen was set up opposite the bed.
"Well, here it is. What do you think of my pad?" Laura asked.
"Very nice. You have excellent taste," Ely gushed.
"What do you think of it?" she asked Eddie.
"What do you have all that junk piled up like that for? Ought to get rid of it," he answered, putting the fifth on the table and searching for some glasses.
"That's the way a Greenwich Village pad is supposed to look. At least, I always thought you were supposed to have stuff like that lying around. There's some glasses in that cabinet."
"Yeah, I see them. Well, Ely, what'll we do, flip for first crack at Laura? Tell you what, I'll be a sport and let you have first go at her," he said, pouring out three shots.
"All right. Take your drink and wait outside," Ely said.
"No dice. I'm staying here."
"Laura! Tell him to wait outside."
"What fun would that be? Let him stick around. Maybe we can teach this country boy something."
"I'll just sit here and work on the bourbon while I watch you. Don't worry, I won't make any noise. I've always wanted to see something like this." Hanging his sport coat on the back of his chair, he leaned back against the wall.
"Go ahead, Ely. Make your play," Laura said, sitting on the edge of the bed."
"At least turn off the lights. I hate having that big gorilla watching us."
"No, the lights stay on. It'll be more fun that way."
Glaring at Eddie, Ely went over to the radio and turned it on. WPAT was the station and it was playing dance music. Standing in front of Laura, she held her arms out. Laura stood up into them and they began moving around in a circle, shedding their shoes as they danced. There wasn't much room in the place but Ely didn't need a whole floor for her purposes.
They moved around in a close embrace, breasts touching, each trying to force the other to follow her lead. Around and around they circled, thighs together, heads resting on each other's shoulders. Laura's eyes were closed and there was a slight little-girl's smile on her face as her hands caressed Ely's back.
"You're a very good dancer," Ely whispered.
"So are you. You should let me take the lead, though."
"All right."
The music came to an end and an announcer started describing that days crises. Ely took the opportunity to kiss Laura quickly on the lips.
"Is that the best you can do?" Laura asked.
"No, Honey. I was just trying to warm you up a little."
"You don't have to worry about warming me up," she replied, pulling her closer and fastening her lips to Ely's. Swaying together in the long embrace, they began twisting their bodies together and clutching at each other's bodies.
"Oh, Laura, you're wonderful," Ely said when they moved apart. Reaching out a hand, she took the tip of Laura's left breast in her hand and squeezed gently.
"like that, don't you?"
"They're tremendous. Laura, when I saw you in the subway station, I just couldn't control myself. If you had cut me and not talked to me when I came up to you, I don't know what I would have done."
"That feels nice. You've got a nice pair here yourself. Let me get hold there ... ah, that's it. No bra, either."
"Laura, don't you think it's getting a little warm in here?"
"Yes, let's give them a little air."
Smiling at each other, they took off their dresses. Ely had on only a pair of panties beneath her dress. Her short, robust body was supple as an acrobatic dancer's. Perhaps she would run to fat in another ten years or so, but now there wasn't a sagging bit of flesh on belly, buttock or chin. Everything was firm and ripe like an August tomato. Still narrow-waisted, she had ample, comfortable hips that flared out to swelling round thighs and legs that were strong and well-developed. Obviously she once had harbored hopes of becoming a dancer.
Above the gently curving slope of her stomach, the two cantaloupe-sized mounds of creamy white flesh, tipped with glowing red nipples, thrust erect with only the slightest concession to the laws of gravity. Bobbing easily with every motion she made, they invited the eye to look, the hand to fondle, the mouth to nurse at their immaculate perfection.
Confidently standing with both hands on her hips, Ely eagerly watched Laura disrobe, secure in the knowledge of her ripe appeal. Without her dress she looked like a statue carved out of gleaming alabaster with a flawless complexion. Her wide mouth opened hungrily as Laura put the dress on the bed and stood in front of her in black panties and bra.
Taller and slenderer than Ely, she was like a thoroughbred racehorse, not carrying an extra ounce of weight but still strong and powerful. Not thin, she had ample curves at the places where women need curves. She reminded Eddie of a sleek-lined tin can, built for speed and utility. Small, almost invisible freckles covered her legs and shoulders as if someone had sprayed her with dots of paint.
"Ely, come here and let me get my hands on you," Laura said.
"What about him?" Ely said, pointing to Eddie. "Why don't you send him away? We don't need him for anything."
"I'm staying," he said flatly.
"You heard him. If he wants to hang around, that's his privilege. Just remember, Eddie, you wait your turn."
"Sure. Go ahead, don't mind me. This is more interesting than a movie."
Swaying to the radio-music, they locked themselves in another embrace, gliding around the small floor slowly. Reaching behind Laura's back, Ely released the taller girls bra. It didn't fall for a few seconds since it was held in place by Ely's own pushing breasts; then it fell between them and landed on the floor.
Now that there was nothing between their bodies but the smooth fabric of their panties. They paid less and less attention to the music and concentrated on getting as close to each other as possible.
"Laura, Laura, I've never dared hope I'd be able to score with as good a girl as you. You're-you're like a goddess. I could worship you, you're so beautiful," Ely said, pressing her head between Laura's conical, pointed breasts and stroking her slim back with both hands.
"Do you really mean that?" Laura asked, holding Ely's head and rumpling the close cropped hair. "Yes, yes. I adore you."
"Prove it then!"
"Anything, I'll do anything," she said, sinking to her knees.
"Kiss my foot." She did.
"Now higher. Higher. That's it!"
Pulling down the black panties, Laura let them fall to her knees. Hobbling backwards, she let herself fall on the bed, lifted her feet up and kicking the panties off. Standing up, Ely yanked off her own garment and joined Laura on the bed.
Eddie moved his chair closer.
A mass of intertwined female flesh, all arms and legs, rolled about the bed. Female flesh, ripe, naked and young.
Eddie began taking off his clothing.
"Oh, Laura, darling, are you ready yet?"
"Do that again. Don't stop, don't stop! Oh, I'm ready to go out of my mind! There! Ely! Ely!"
"Darling! Let me kiss you.
"Yes, yes!. . . "
Then there were no sounds except low-pitched moans.
Eddie felt somewhat left out of things.
The girls were busy but if they had looked up, they would have been able to see that he wouldn't be left out much longer. Standing over the squirming bodies, Eddie tried to figure his next move.
It wasn't too simple.
Grabbing one of the thighs before him, he wrenched the two women apart, like a referee breaking a hold in a wrestling match. Laura lay on her back, looking up at him with surprised eyes. She started to say something, then he was over her, brutally invading her body.
The change from female to male was abrupt, but
Laura had no trouble accommodating herself to Eddie. Ely had been kind of a preview, that was all. As Eddie had said before, a woman lacked necessary equipment. Dazed by the sudden turn of events, Ely watched, dumbfounded.
"That's it, Eddie, more, more!" Laura cried.
The spectacle of two beautiful women making love together had excited Eddie tremendously, now he was making up for lost time. The rank odor of female musk in her sweat, and gasping mouth assailed him, her long hot body was smooth, and slippery.
Horrified at what was happening betore her eyes, Ely began beating at his back with both hands, trying to drive him off. She might as well have tried to beat off an elephant with a fly swatter for all the attention he paid her.
"Stop it, stop it, you animal, you brute!" Ely screamed, pushing and pulling at his body.
Ignoring her, Laura and Eddie continued their driving, head-long pace, wet-skinned with effort. Stifled moans and grunts were the only answer they gave to Ely's entreaties. Laura met each lunge of his body joyfully, again and again, feeling herself merge into his wild desire, clasping him to her with arms and thighs until the two struggling bodies shook convulsively and then were still once more. Breaking free of each other, they lay on their backs, grinning at Ely's outraged glare.
"You-you were like animals," Ely said.
"You said that before," Eddie replied, reaching out for her arm.
"Don't touch me!"
"Join us, Ely. I owe you something for slugging me just now. Give me a hand with her, Laura."
"What are you going to do, rape her, Eddie?"
Laura giggled, helping him drag the struggling girl to the bed.
"No, I don't think it'll be necessary to rape her. I just want her to join the party," Eddie replied, grasping her arms and holding Ely between him and Laura.
Eventually, she quieted down and joined in the general merry-making, volunteering several ideas of an exotic nature that were truly astounding in their ingenuity....
The bars were closed, milk trucks were making their deliveries and dawn was in the east when Eddie emerged on the streets. The night's activities were still fresh in his mind and he shook his head as he ambled back to Selma. What a time! He'd never really believed things like that actually happened. It just went to show that it paid to keep your eyes open.
Selma stirred awake when he eased the door open and entered the room. He could hear her shift around on the couch. Silently stripping, he lay down near the edge, feeling like a husband who has just come home from a cat-house.
"You took your time coming back."
"So what?"
"Where were you?"
"Look, knock it off and let me get some sleep. What's it to you how I spend my time?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all," she answered, turning on her side away from him.
She was out of the house when he awoke, which suited him fine. She was getting to be more and more of a pain, nagging and looking at him. It'd be smart of him to move out but it was easier to keep putting it off. He could get by cheaper living with her than getting some room on his own. The longer he made his stake last, the longer it would be before he had to go back to Stubbin's Corner or pick up a job.
Maybe he'd be better off if he found himself a crap-game and risked his roll. That was how he made it and maybe his luck was still running strong. The trouble was, he didn't have any contacts in New York and he didn't care too much for the idea of playing with strangers. He liked the idea of gambling, though.
Slipping into a pair of dungarees, Eddie checked the coffee pot, found there was enough for a cup in it and lit the stove. Selma came in and started folding the bed back into a couch. He gave her a hand with it.
"You're getting around pretty good for a country boy, Eddie. Moving in on dikes and everything else nowadays, aren't you?"
"Who told you all that?"
"What do you think they call this the Village for? Everything on two legs in this neighborhood has had a turn at your girl Laura. Maybe four legs, too. I see her walking around with a Great Dane once in a while and I have my suspicions. The grocer couldn't wait to tell me."
"Guess you get gossips everyplace. Well, that's the way I am, Selma. It's too late for me to change now. If you want me to shove off, it's OK with me."
"No, Eddie. Stick around and get some benefit out of that bed you bought. It should be worth it for laughs to see what happens to you next."
"That's the right idea, Selma. It doesn't pay to take things as serious as you do. What the hell, I'll probably be moving on pretty soon anyway. We may as well be friends until then."
"Going back to Vermont, Eddie? When?"
"In another week or two. Might stick it out longer. I've had an idea for getting some cash next week."
"What? Don't tell me you're going to work!"
"I'll let you know how it works out. It's an outfit out on Long Island I've been hearing about."
"That's fine, Eddie. It's no use loafing around like this. I don't know why I'm worrying about you, though," she said, starting to prepare his breakfast. If anybody had ever told her she'd be putting up with a character like Eddie, she'd have laughed herself silly. She just couldn't get mad at the guy in spite of his sleeping around. He was like a big kid, natural and simple and direct in everything he did. The only thing you could do was to enjoy him and laugh with him. Maybe this job out on the Island would settle him down.
They spent the week-end in their customary manner, drinking, watching movies and making love. She tried to pump him about the job but he refused to say anything about it. Maybe, she thought, the job would turn out to be good. Eddie might even start thinking about settling down. Of course being married to an over-sexed clown like this one would be a lot of trouble, but it was something to think about.
Monday afternoon Eddie got on the subway at Times Square to the Long Island outfit he'd told Selma about. It was a well-known establishment, even had a direct train running out to it. It manufactured dreams and optimism. It was the Aqueduct Race Track.
Eddie had bought a tan straw hat for the occasion, and in company with a horde of other racing enthusiasts waited out the long trip. The crowd of intent scratch-sheet scholars he was riding with made him feel alive again. Hell, gambling was the way he made his roll, maybe he could push it into the big dough here at the track. Of course he didn't know anything about horse-racing, but it all boiled down to luck and having the guts to back your luck. He regretted not having a pair of binoculars like some of the sports on the train. Well, the next time.
The high, gleaming walls rose abruptly from the flat plain. Beyond the Grandstand, the wide expanse of the track spread out. It was still early and he wandered about the huge structure, studying the program. It all seemed fairly simple. When the ticket windows opened, he put ten to win on the number five horse. It came in, paying him some forty dollars.
At the end of the last race a broken figure wearing a once-jaunty straw hat staggered through the dejected crowd. It was Eddie, and he had twenty-two cents to his name. He'd shot his whole wad.
After buying a token he was down to seven cents. The train back wasn't a special and it hit almost every stop, giving him some time to think. He still couldn't understand exactly what had happened. Of course there was still the money he had sent home. That was his best move now, go home and lick his wounds for a spell. Good thing he still had that train ticket the Navy had given him. The damn thing had better be good!
He came sneaking into Selma's like a thief. Fortunately, she wasn't in yet. Quickly packing his gear, he prepared to leave. Damn it, he didn't have enough money to pay the subway fare to the railroad station! Feeling even more disgusted with himself than before, he searched through Selma's things until he found a quarter.
Scribbling a fast note on one of her drawing pads, he left.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EIGHT O'CLOCK ON A FRIDAY NIGHT and the Fleet's Inn, a few blocks away from the Brooklyn Navy Yard was crowded with swabbies, gyrenes, smoke, the hard laugh of floogies and the raw smell of booze. Except for a table of marines, the customers were all Navy. The crew of the Navy tug Pequod-all five of the malong with Chief Neff, their captain, held down a corner of the bar and grinned at each other while they took turns fondling the two young tarts they'd picked up.
Sitting on a stool slightly away from the rest Chuck Huzak, his first-class rating new and shiny on his arm, worked on his fifth bourbon of the night. Some duty station he had gotten. Stationed on a harbor tug in New York with his old buddy, Neff, as the Old Man. You might say he was exec officer of the Pequod. While only a harbor tug, it was pretty good for an enlisted man.
Funny, the way things turned out. Here he was, in the best set-up he'd ever had in the Navy, and he knew he'd be a thousand times better off if he swung a transfer to some place off in the boondocks on the other side of the world. He had been on the Pequod for a week and already it was driving him crazy to be so close to Manhattan-and to Kathy. At night, when they brought the Pequot up the East River to dock in the Yard and the lights started to come on across the river, he couldn't help but try to figure out where her apartment was located.
There it was, New York and Kathy. All he had to do was cross a bridge and he could see her. Kathy.
Kathy and Strang.
Try as he might he couldn't keep from remembering that night, and the sight of her blonde head, while the bastard standing there groaned and flushed red, damn his soul to hell! And Strang, grinning like a death's head as he reached down and put his long fingers on her as if she was nothing but a statue or a piece of furniture he owned.
Angrily, he tossed down the fiery drink. Thinking about it wasn't doing him any good, he had to forget. The liquor wasn't doing him any good, either. Signaling the bartender for another shot, he turned his attention to the rest of the crew.
NefFs chief s cap was tilted to one side and his tie was loosened as he stood with one stubby arm around each of the women. The one at his right was sallow-colored with a hint of the Negro in her flat features. Her hefty body was stuffed into red slacks and a striped blouse. The other was a thin blonde, younger but just as tough looking. Joanie was her name and her pinched face held no emotion while Neff squeezed her rump.
"You're two pretty good heads, you know," Neff mumbled. "One big and one little. How'd you two like to pick up a little extra change for yourselves?"
"What do you have in mind, Chiefy?" the darker woman asked.
"Well, it's this way. I'm captain of a ship, see. The good ship Pequod. Whoever named her that sure was a comedian. Ahab's my name and this here is my scurvy crew. Anyhow, I'm the sort of captain who takes an interest in his crew. I like to look out for their interests, see?"
"You're all heart, Cap," one of the crew said.
"You ain't bird-turding when you say that. See, I figure a happy ship is a well-run ship. What I'd like would be for you two to make my crew happy. Think you could do it?"
"I think so. What you got in mind?"
"Let's see, there's six of us. Figure each of you can handle three apiece at ten bucks a throw. What about it?"
"I don't know. Let me and Joanie talk it over." Separating themselves from the crew, the two hustlers made their way to the woman's room.
"What do you think of that big one? Hot stuff, ain't she? I get first crack at her," Neff said.
"Hey, what's this? Don't tell me you're going to start pulling rank on us?"
"I'm captain, ain't I? A good captain never sends his men someplace he wouldn't go himself. I'm just going to check out that broad to make sure she comes up to Navy standards."
"I'll say it again, Cap'n Neff. You're all heart."
"Call me Captain Ahab."
"Call me Ishmael," Chuck said.
"I'll call you crud-head if you don't get on the ball, Huzak," Neff said, pointing a wavering finger at Chuck.
"What's your bitch, Phil?"
"This. You're second in command on the boat, right? It's up to you to set a high standard for the rest of the crew. But you've been fouling up."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Chuck responded angrily. "I haven't fouled up and you know it. I've been handling that tug as well as you since I came aboard."
"I'm not talking about what you do on the tug. It's the way you act on liberty that bugs me. You've been here for a week now and you ain't been laid yet. Get on the ball, Chuck. You got responsibilities now. You got to play the game."
"That an order, Phil?" Chuck asked, grinning.
"Damn right it is."
"OK, I'll grab the little blonde."
"See that you do."
"Aye, aye sir," Chuck said, throwing him a mock salute. The two women came back to their seats and sat down.
"OK, we're selling if you're buying," the dark one said.
"Good. Do you have someplace we can use?"
"We got a place near here. We'll take you on two at a time, cash in advance."
"Fair enough. Come on, Chuck. Do your duty."
Wrapping his arm around the hefty one, Neff led the way followed by Chuck and Joanie. The other customers cheered and proffered advice as they passed through the door out into the street. Chuck, a wry grin on his face, followed Neff's lurching figure. So this is how it was going to wind up. Back to whores again.
"My name is Joanie," the blonde said. "Yeah, I heard. I'm Chuck."
There wasn't need for further conversation. Her arm was skinny and her yellow hair hung lank and dead from her head. Spawn of the city's slum, she couldn't be much past her teens but her hard, alert eyes seemed much older. As she walked, she pulled out a stick of gum and slipped it between her overly made-up lips.
Neff and the other were making slow going, but Chuck kept behind them. It didn't matter a damn to him whether he grabbed his woman or not. Nothing mattered a damn. If only it were Kathy walking here with him and he was back in school with her and the last five years had never been!
The liquor fumes started mounting inside his head as they walked along. What the hell good was it? Why not just take off and leave the whole damned batch of them? Find some quiet bar and get stoned again. Then Neff and his woman turned and entered a dilapidated two-story building, the first floor of which consisted of run-down stores.
"Here it is. We've got the whole top floor. Four rooms, all to ourselves," Joanie said with a trace of pride. You could see her whole life in that absurd pride. She probably never had a room to herself until she started hustling.
"Got anything to drink up there, Joanie?" he asked, stroking her long hair.
"Yeah, we got some booze."
"You're not a bad looking girl." Her hair was fine, almost like Kathy's. A crazy idea was starting to grow in his head. It was because he was drunk; but hell, that was why you drank. So you'd have the guts to do crazy things.
"We'd better get in before some fuzz spots us."
"Yeah, we'll go inside."
Standing behind her with his hands on her hips, he watched as she pushed open a door next to a cobbler's shop. They walked up a flight of stairs and into a dingy apartment. Neff and the other woman were laying all over each other on a couch. A whiskey bottle stood on the floor next to them.
"Come on," Joanie said, picking up the bottle "We can go in the back where I have my room."
The room was a narrow, stuffy box with barely enough space for the bed and a battered bureau. A single window looked out over one of those tiny backyard gardens you occasionally see in the city.. Chuck hoisted one foot on the window sill and took a swig of the liquor.
"You want me stripped all the way?" she asked as she pulled off her dress. With her blonde hair and white slip, she was only a white blur in the dim light.
"Yeah. I-I'd like something a little different."
"Oh? Listen, I'm straight, see. I don't go for any of the rough stuff so if that's what you want, forget it. You ain't getting anything imagine for ten bucks, either," she said.
"I'll pay an extra ten. It won't be anything rough." Now that his eyes were getting used to the dark, he. could make out magazines lying in stacks on the bureau. Movie magazines, they looked like. True Romance. God, True Romance!
"An extra ten? I don't know. What do you want?"
"Just stand over by the bed, looking the other way. That's all. Just stand there and keep your mouth shut."
"That all? OK. Give me the twenty first."
"Here." He gave her two bills and she opened the door so she could check them in the light.
"All right. You want the light on?" she asked.
"No. No, keep it dark."
As he took off his clothes, he looked away from her, trying to imagine back to the first time he had taken Kathy. He was back in school, five years ago, and Kathy was waiting for him by the bed, and she was scared.
No, it's only a whore waiting there for you. She's only a whore and you're nothing but a drunken sailor in a cheap, obscene, stupid farce, something inside him said.
He could see her outlined in the light from the window, her narrow shoulders hunched forward. His breath thick with whiskey he stepped toward her, put his hands on her upper arms and brought his lips to her neck.
"Kathy, Kathy," he whispered, kissing her and holding her bare body against him.
Slipping his hands beneath her arms, he grabbed both her hard, pointed little breasts and squeezed, trying to remember the firmness and size of Kathy's. She began rubbing against him the way an alley cat does when you pet it.
She turned in his arms and let him kiss her mouth, her fingernails scratching him lightly on the back. Desperately he kissed and fondled her tough, bony body, trying to keep within his remembrance of the Kathy he had known, trying to hide from the reality that was rapidly overtaking him.
"Kathy, Kathy, I love you!" he cried.
"You bet, Big Boy. I can feel it. Come to little Kathy," she said, twisting in his grip like a cat.
With a strangled moan he had her on her back on the bed, her expert thighs were opening and he was there. His breath came in explosive gasps as he clasped her thin-boned, violent body to him, lunging at her in a frenzy, trying to surmount his knowledge of what she was and what he was.
"That'a boy, Chuck! More! More!"
Slamming into her body like a berserk pile-driver, he rode his wild lust, his mind a turmoil of conflicting emotions. She was shaking and moving against him, her lips pulled away from her teeth in a grimace, her breath in his ear.
"More, more. Little Kathy wants more."
The stale musty smell of the sheets and the cheap perfume she used choked his throat. Speedily, with the skill that comes from long practice, she brought his lust to an on-rushing, unstoppable explosion, he shuddered for one last, straining moment and then it was over.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, the voice said.
They separated, she rolled off the bed and left the room. He was lying on his back with his hand across his face when she returned. She flipped a switch and harsh light flooded the room. The bones on her shoulders and hips jutted out sharply while the two small breasts barely broke the outline of her chest. Taking a faded blue robe from the back of the door, she put it on and rummaged around the top of the bureau until she found a pack of cigarettes. Lighting one, she looked down on Chuck with amused, contemptuous young eyes.
"So that's what you wanted?" she asked. "Who was this Kathy? Some twist who turned it off on you?"
"She was a girl I ran out on a long time back."
"Yeah? Well, that's one thing about this business, you sure meet a lot of nuts. There was this clown with me a few weeks ago and you know what he wanted? Same thing as you but he kept calling me 'Marilyn'. Can you beat that? Me, he starts calling Marilyn! Of course, I am a real blonde, you can see that."
"Yeah, I can see."
"Well, that's about it, ain't it? You don't want anything else, do you?"
"No, I don't want anything else."
"You'd better get dressed then and get back to the bar. Tell the next one to come along."
Slowly he picked up his tailor-made whites and dressed while she sat on the bed, reading a movie magazine article describing the latest love of Troy Donahue. Back in uniform, he went to the door and turned back to her.
"So long, Sailor," she said, looking up from her magazine. "If you get in the mood again, me and Rita generally hang around the Fleet's Inn on week-ends."
"Yeah, I'll remember."
When he went through the other rooms, he passed an open door where he heard straining bed-springs. Neff and the other one. He went out the door and down the steps. The street was empty and dark. Walking along the gutter, he headed back to the Yard. The Fleet's Inn was bright, gaudy and loud as he passed it by. He kept on walking until he came to the Sand Street entrance.
Showing his liberty and ID cards to the Marines at the gate, Chuck made his way to where the Pequod was docked. Everything seemed hard and harsh. He imagined he could feel Strang's eyes watching him. The rest of his life would be the same as this night. Lonely, useless drunks and cheap, useless whores. Lost, everything was lost.
Kathy was gone and he had destroyed her. No, that couldn't be. It wasn't his fault. It was Strang, with his cold hatred of anything that was warm and alive and good, who had ruined Kathy. He realized that he would have to think that if he was to hold on to his sanity. It was Strang, Strang who was the blame.
Why not destroy Strang, then?
The idea came full-grown into his mind, blotting everything else out. Kill Strang. Then Kathy would be the same as she had been before. And those terrible pictures of him and Kathy together wouldn't keep creeping into Chuck's mind. What happened to him wouldn't matter because he knew that Kathy would be safe then.
The pier guard recognized him and he dropped onto the deck of the Pequod. The light in the small galley was on, but the seaman left on watch was crapped out in the sleeping quarters. Chuck poured himself a cup of coffee and stared down into its murky depths for a few seconds as if he could read his fate there.
So far it had been nothing but a drunken idea. The walk back had sobered him, all he had to do was let the whole thing drop. He wasn't a killer. Forget it, or try to forget it, and sack out. Tomorrow night he could get drunk again or pick up another whore, a younger, better-looking one.
And the night after that, and the next night, and the next?
More booze, more women while Strang's face grinned at him and mocked him. What had Strang said to him? What are you going to do now? What next?
Abruptly, Chuck hurled the coffee cup at the stainless steel stove, breaking it into small shards.
"I'm going to kill you, you son of a bitch!" he said aloud, knowing that he meant it, knowing that he would destroy himself by doing it but not caring. He would free Kathy, that was all that mattered. She would realize that he had sacrificed himself for her, she would know that he still loved her.
He went down below to his bunk and opened the locker underneath it. Opening it very quietly so as not to awaken the seaman sleeping opposite him, he brought out his blue overnight bag and carried it up to the wheelhouse. His hands slid along the cluttered bottom of the bag until he finally found what he was looking for.
His old yellow switch-blade knife.
Funny how he'd hung onto it so long. It must have been at least fifteen years since he'd bought it. He had carried it with him all over the world, forgetting about it while it lay in the bottom of the bag, waiting until he would use it.
He was-what?-about fourteen or fifteen when he bought it in a store just off the Loop. He'd gotten into a fight with a couple of Italians and heard that they were laying for him. The guy who owned the store had the knives in a tray under the glass counter. When Chuck pointed out the one he wanted, the guy sold it to him without a word.
Carrying the knife in his hip pocket had made him feel older and tougher when he walked back to the neighborhood. Stopping at the pool hall where he hung out, he hadn't been able to resist taking it out of his pocket and admiring its sleek, simple beauty when he thought that nobody was looking his way. Someone was, though.
Berco.
Nobody knew if Berco was his last name or first, and nobody in the neighborhood was about to ask him. He was a runty little hunyak in his forties with long straight black hair combed flat on his head. He had done time and the word was that he carried a gun and used it.
Walking up to Chuck, he took the knife out of his hands and flashed it open.
"First time you ever bought a shiv, Kid?"
"Yeah. Except for jackknives."
"Figures. Shiv's a funny thing, Kid. You've got a lot to know about them if you're going to carry one. First thing is, never let anybody take it away from you," he said, jabbing at Chuck's belly with the blade and stopping the point less than an inch from his belt buckle.
"I'll remember," Chuck answered, making himself look straight into Berco's eyes. Some guys playing pool stopped and looked, but made no move towards them. Chuck remembered how they said that Berco was stir-crazy.
"That's the right idea, Kid. Don't flinch, don't let anyone see how scared you are," Berco said, barking out laughter suddenly. Turning his glance back to the knife, he twirled it around in his hand. "It's a cheap blade but it looks like it'll take an edge. Get yourself a stone and sharpen it. There ain't no sense in carrying a dull knife. Are you gonna carry it?"
"That's why I bought it."
"I tell you, Kid, don't carry this unless you're ready to use it. And if you use it, don't play around. If a guy's determined to get you, the only way you can be sure of stopping him with a knife is by killing him. Hold the knife at an angle like this, see, and then-straight to the heart!" Again he brought the point less than an inch from Chuck. He laughed again, closed the knife and dropped it into Chuck's slightly sweating palm.
Chuck never did run into the Italians he was scared of. In all the time he owned the knife, he had only brought it out twice. The time in college when the football player had tried to beat him up again, although Chuck hadn't cut him; and the time he ran into two Negroes one night near the Lake.
He was going to high school and had gone down to the playing field for some football. The breeze from the lake was cold with the threat of approaching winter when the game finally broke up. Stars were bright in the dark sky, he was hungry and anxious to get home. Leaving the others, he took a short-cut across the park. He was half-way across the baseball field when he heard somebody running up behind him. Turning, he saw two Negroes about his age coming toward him.
Immediately he took off, but they were fast bastards, big and with long legs. He could hear them gaining on him. When one of them was just behind him he desperately tried a kid's trick, stopping short and falling to his knees with his back bent. The one closest to him let out a yell but couldn't stop in time. As he tumbled over his back, Chuck stood up and the Negro crashed head first into the sandy ground.
Chuck's knife was in his hand, although he didn't remember taking it out. Holding it in front of him, he ran at the other Negro, slashing and jabbing. There was a confused flurry of blows and he felt the knife stick into something soft. The Negro screamed and he had a glimpse of his white eyes gleaming in the dark. Then he was past, running like hell all the way back to his neighborhood.
He hid the knife on the roof of a place near where he lived before he went home and couldn't sleep all night. The next day he bought all the papers and went through every page, but didn't see anything about the stabbing. So he figured he couldn't have hurt the Negro bad. A few days later, he went back to the roof and got the knife.
A garbage scow pulled by a tug underneath the bridge blew its whistle, bringing him back to the present. He pressed the button on the knife's hilt, but the spring had been broken long ago. Giving the knife a little twist, he snapped the blade out. He still had the knack of using a gravity knife.
The blade was pocked with rust spots, he saw. That wouldn't do. What would Berco say if he saw how crummy the knife looked? If Berco were still alive, that is. Searching through the bag, he took out a small stone and patiently began sharpening the knife against its smooth surface.
Early in the morning, Neff and the others came roaring back to the boat, drunk and singing. Sitting in the shadows, Chuck waited while they nosily made their way to their bunks.
"Where the hell is that Huzak?" Neff bellowed. "I thought the bastard would be back aboard by this time."
"Probably getting stoned in the City someplace. Figures he's too good to drink with us uneducated swabbies. The hell with him and his damn college."
"Yeah, you're right. Hell with him," Neff's voice agreed.
The Pequod grew quiet again in half an hour save for the slight whistling noise the blade made when it scraped against the stone. When the sky lightened and outlined the skyscrapers on the other side of the river, the knife was gleaming and sharp as if it had just been bought that day. The sun broke over the eastern horizon, burning the sky a flaming red.
Chuck rose, closed the knife and stuck it in his sock. The Yard was deserted. He didn't see anybody until he checked out of the Sand Street gate. The Marine on duty was a little surprised to see anyone at that time of day, but his cards were in order so he had no trouble.
The Sand Street of legend, song and story was long gone. Housing projects crammed with Puerto Ricans and Negroes stood on the spots where bars, clip-joints, "tatoo" and "massage" parlors once were located. Reaching the top of the slight hill that led to the subway and the entrance to the bridge, he took the knife out of his sock and put it into his front pocket.
White uniform gleaming in the newly-risen sun, he headed across the river to Manhattan. A young colored boxer, welter by the look of him, came running past him at the center of the bridge, pausing every once in a while to bob and weave and shadow box. The ancient buildings on the Manhattan side of the bridge lay in a confused jumble beneath the roadway, looking like a pile of children's blocks huddled together.
He didn't know the best way of getting to the Village from where he was, but that suited him fine. The bright morning light was pleasant to walk through and he was in no hurry. Crossing to the other side of City Hall, he found Broadway and slowly walked uptown.
At six-thirty on a Saturday morning, the street was deserted. A few bums sprawled in doorways and an occasional truck rumbled past, but that was all. It took longer to get to the Village than he thought, and finding Erwin Street was a bit of a problem. He had forgotten what a labyrinth the Village was.
By eight fifteen he was in front of fifty-five Erwin.
It didn't seem right, or the way he thought he'd feel, but he was too far gone to stop now. He went inside and began climbing the stairs, going slower and slower the higher up he went. He reached the fifth floor.
Strang's door was just across the hallway.
Taking the knife out he held it, unopened, in his hand, making no move. Standing very still, he watched the door, his mind empty. Long minutes passed and he didn't move a muscle. As the day grew older, the house started to awaken. Somebody opened a door a few flights beneath him and went down the stairs. An automobile horn blew loudly out in the street.
The sound of the horn seemed to be a signal of some sort to make him move. Stepping over to the door, he pressed the bell and waited, crouched slightly on the balls of his feet, breathing fast and holding the arm that held the knife away from his body.
No noise came from the apartment and for a second there was a chance that sanity could return, he felt a vague relief run through him and started to relax. Then he heard footsteps. The peep-hole in the center of the door snapped open and he heard a deep chuckle.
Strang opened the door.
He wore pajamas and a bath-robe. He didn't have his glasses on, his eyes were puffy and old with sleep. Grinning, he opened the door all the way.
"Well, if it isn't the wandering sailor back again. I knew you'd come back, but I'm a little surprised it's so soon. What have you been doing? Getting drunk in some dive and remembering the dear, dead days when you had all of your precious ideals intact? Come on in. I'll awaken Kathy."
Chuck shook his head and snapped his wrist down. The blade glittered in the dim light. Strang didn't change his expression. He even gave a little laugh.
"So you've reverted to type, eh, Huzak? All the way back to your juvenile days in-where was it? Oh, yes. Chicago. I, no doubt, am supposed to be so terrified of that ridiculous toy that I'll disappear in a cloud of smoke, leaving you with my wife. Put that thing away!" Strang said, his voice losing it's suavity and becoming urgent.
Chuck lunged smoothly forward, holding the knife at an angle so that it slid easily through Strang's ribs and found his heart.
Both of Strang's arms grabbed Chuck as if in an embrace, then he slid down and fell on his back on the floor, mouth and eyes wide open as if amazed that so simple a thing as a mere three inches of steel could still his quick intelligence. A blotch of red stained Chuck's white top where Strang had pressed against his chest.
The knife was red to the hilt. He shook his head again as if to clear it and looked down at the corpse. Strang had lost a lot of hair, his face was older than he'd realized. He had been getting old. Somehow he hadn't thought of Strang as an old man. He began rubbing at the blood-stain on his top with his left hand.
"Harold? Who is it?" Kathy's voice called from the bedroom in the back of the apartment.
He could hear her moving around and then she came through the door, her hair hanging loosely to her shoulders, wrapped in a silk dressing gown.
"Hal, who is it?" she started to ask, then stopped to gape at the scene before her. "Chuck! What are you doing here? What's happened? Hal!"
She fell to her knees on the floor beside Strang. Slowly, she lifted her face up to look at Chuck, her eyes wild with horror.
"You-you've killed him!"
"I-I-yes, I did. For you, Kathy, for you."
"You murdered him!"
"I had to, he was no good. He was evil. I killed him for your sake."
"You're crazy! You killed my husband!" she said, falling back on her knees. The robe separated, revealing her creamy white breasts as she stared up at him.
"I had to do it, Kathy, I had to do it," he repeated, bending over and putting his hand on her shoulder. It was very important that he made Kathy understand. "Don't you see that? The things he was making you do, I couldn't let that go on. I couldn't let him ruin you like that."
"What? What are you talking about?" I love you, Kathy."
Bending her head over Strang's face, she hid herself from Chuck. Her shoulders started shaking, choked, hysterical laughter rang strange and unreal through the room. When she lifted her face to his, it was rigid and twisted with hate.
"You filthy murdering son of a bitch, you killed my husband!" she hissed, brushing his hand off her shoulder and struggling up to her feet. Not paying any attention to the completely open robe, she swayed on her feet in front of him. "You simpering idot! You just killed my husband and you stand there talking nonsense about love. I loved him, don't you understand that?"
"You couldn't. Not him, not after those days we lived together back in Davis."
"Davis! Damn Davis! Do you think I could stay an eighteen year old virgin all my life? It wasn't until he took me that I found out what it meant to really be in love and to be a woman."
"No! You can't mean that! Those other men and the things he made you do-"
"I liked them! He made me like them. He was a man, a real man, the only real man I've ever had. You were nothing compared to him, nothing at all!"
"No, it's not so," he said, rubbing his hand against his eyes.
"And you killed him! You miserable, soft worm, you killed a man a thousand times better then you. You'll burn for it, they'll burn you and I hope they let me watch!"
"You don't mean what you're saying," he said in a very slow, distinct voice.
"I mean it, every word. I loved him, he was the only man I've ever loved-"
Chuck's body seemed to move of its own accord. The hand holding the knife moved forward and the blade disappeared into the smooth white skin over Kathy's navel. She looked down at the cut, screamed and began walking backwards away from him, clutching her belly while the blood streamed over her fingers. Still screaming, she backed against the wall and fell to the rug.
Then she stopped screaming and lay still.
The room was quiet again.
Stupidly, Chuck looked at the hand holding the knife. He hadn't wanted to do that. He tried to drop the knife but his fingers wouldn't let go of it. He began shaking his hand, trying to shake it loose. Bright drops of blood flecked off the blade onto the rug.
Trembling violently, he finally gave up and looked over to where Kathy lay crumpled by the wall with the robe pulled over her long dancer's legs.
"Kathy!" his voice said, sounding strange to his ears.
Backing up, he passed the body of Strang and the open door and was out in the hallway again. His eyes were wild as they looked back to Strang's apartment.
Run.
Still holding the knife in his right hand, he dashed madly down the steps. People stood at the half opened doors of their apartments and watched him over the safety of their chains. Something had happened upstairs, but you don't get involved in anything when you live in New York.
Down the stairs and out of the building into the bright streets. The people on the sidewalks shrank back at his appearance. Staggering into the middle of the street he began running down the center line, ignoring the cars.
He was running the way he ran when the Negroes nearly got him by the Lake. He was running as if in a dream, running so fast that he was ready to take to the air in flight.
He was running straight at a cop who looked at him with scared eyes over a .38 pointed at his chest.
The cop yelled something, there was an explosion and something slammed into his chest. He stopped as if somebody had hit him with a sixteen-pound sledge hammer the pavement came up and hit him hard, he was rolling in the street, dirtying his clean whites.
Then Chuck Huzak finally stopped running.
CHAPTER NINE
SAILOR SLAYS COUPLE, COPS KILL, the headlines blared. Beneath the headlines there was a picture of Kathy and her husband, and another one of Chuck alone that Eddie recognized. He'd taken it a few years back when he and Chuck were on the same ship in Norfolk.
Eddie had been buying the New York papers since he came back to Stubbin's Corner. Anderson, the storekeeper, noticed the shocked expression on Eddie's face, came hobbling up, his narrow fox-like face eager with the scent of scandal.
"What's the matter, Eddie? Somebody you know?" he asked with a cackle.
"Yeah, I knew the sailor," Eddie answered without thinking.
"No kidding? Say, maybe you knew the girl, too, eh? Hey, that's something! You have to tell me all about it!"
"Later, Clem, later," Eddie said, folding the paper and taking it to Ben Jone's place next store. Damn it, he should have kept his mouth shut. He had forgotten the eagerness with which a small town leaps on any gossip.
There were no other customers in the bar. Buying a bottle of beer, he brought it to a corner booth and read through the paper. It still didn't register. Chuck Huzak! How could he do such a thing? Eddie thought he knew him. It gave him an eerie feeling to read about Kathy. Just a few short weeks ago he had given her a tumble on the couch while her husband slept in the next room. Well, there wasn't any sense recalling that.
Carefully reading the article, he searched for some mention of Selma, but the paper said nothing about her. That was a relief, knowing that she hadn't been involved. Maybe it was just as well that he had fucked off the way he did, although if he were around he might have managed to cool Chuck off.
Using a knife that way! It just didn't figure. Chuck had always been so level-headed, too. Getting clobbered on the head that time he got mugged might have set him off. Eddie stayed in the bar all afternoon, nursing beers. Losing his roll at Aqueduct had made him a cautious spender.
The more he thought about Chuck and Kathy, the more confused he got. So he banished them from his mind. They were dead now, it was too late to solve their problems. He was alive and he still didn't know what he was going to do. Coming home had been a ball for the first few days. He looked up some of his old high school buddies, and they had some good drunks together.
Most of them were married, though and that seemed to put them in a different world. A world of babies and wives and furniture payments that were due the first of every month. The way they paired off amazed Eddie. Some of the women they married were real losers.
He groaned now when he remembered how he had thrown away his money. If he'd only stopped to think, he would have bought a car as soon as he got out of the Navy. If you didn't have a car, you weren't anything in civilian life. In New York, it didn't matter so much; but it was everything here in Stubbin's Corner.
He still had a couple of hundred left so he could buy a clunker, but by the time he paid the insurance he'd be stone broke again. Even a heap would be a nice thing to have. If he got too disgusted with things, he could just point it west and take off for California.
By five o'clock, the place started filling up with workers who had just left the day shift at the shoe factory. Not feeling like eating with his parents, he ordered a roast beef sandwich along with another bottle of beer. He really should cut down on eating out, but eating at home was getting to be a pain in the neck. They were on his back every chance they got, asking him when he was going to work.
He was just finishing the sandwich when Dick Miller, his sister's husband, came in. Dick was a tall, heavy-set man in his thirties who worked as a foreman in the shoe factory. Eddie had never cared much for him, thinking him something of a slob. But he was his brother-in-law, so he smiled at Miller when he pushed his way through the crowd towards Eddie's table.
"Hello, Dick, have a seat."
"Some people have it made, all right. Sitting on their backside all day in a saloon."
"Just have to play your cards right."
"I was hoping I'd meet you here," Miller said, sitting opposite Eddie and handing him a sheet of paper. "Got a little present for you, Eddie."
"What's that?"
"The vacation's over, Boy. It's an application for a job at the plant. Ann and your folks and me got together and decided it's time for you to settle down."
"You did, huh?" Eddie asked, ignoring the application blank on the table.
"Yeah. Too many guys your age, Eddie, waste a hell of a lot of time loafing around after they get out of the service. That's no good. The sooner you get set into place, the better."
"So all of you decided that I have to get a job sewing soles to shoes?"
"Not sewing. I got you in the tannery. Took a little pull but I've been in the company for ten years now. The pay's a little better there. They start you off at one sixty-seven an hour, ten cent raise every year you're there for the first five years. It's a pretty good deal. You start Monday."
"Damn nice of you to go through all that trouble," Eddie said, trying to keep calm. Damn it, where the hell did they get their nerve, getting his life set up the way they wanted without even asking him about it?
"What the hell, you're Ann's brother. Besides, you young guys need a little nudge once in awhile or you'll never get anything done. I'd hate to have a ass as a brother-in-law, anyway."
"Yeah. like I said, it's nice of you to go to all that trouble but I ain't interested in working in no shoe factory so you can forget about it," Eddie said, handing him back the paper.
Miller started to get mad then controlled himself with an effort.
"Look, Eddie, let's be reasonable about this thing. Maybe you ain't been reading the papers but I have and I can tell you that jobs are scarce now. There are plenty of guys who'd jump at a chance like this. What do you figure you're going to get? You're going to have to go to work sometime, you know."
"I'm ready to go to work, but I sure as hell ain't going to spend the rest of my life doing dog-labor in some factory!"
"Oh, you're too good for that, eh? What the hell else are you able to do? What education, what training do you have? You barely got through high school, and what was it you were in the Navy? Quartermaster, whatever the hell that is."
"I was a navigator. How about keeping your voice down? These people ain't interested in this."
"Never mind my voice. So you were a navigator! A hell of a lot of good that'll do unless you go back to sea! What the damn hell do you think you're going to do, Eddie? Get a job on your looks or something? Get off your high horse. You're nothing but an unskilled laborer and the sooner you admit it to yourself, the better. This is the best job you'll get so grab it while you have the chance."
"No, thanks. I'd go back to the Navy before I'd take a dead-end job like that."
"The Navy! That's about all you're good for."
"Listen, Dick, I didn't ask you over here so why don't you do me a favor and take off and let me finish my beer?"
"OK, Eddie, I'll let you finish your beer," Miller said, rising to his feet and resting his fists on the table. "Let me tell you one thing. You know what you're turning out to be? A ass, a loafing, lazy ass?"
"Miller," Eddie said, looking down at his hands, "if you wasn't Ann's husband, I'd deck you here and now. Don't go pushing it, though. I've had just about enough."
"And I've had just about enough of you. Get on the ball or I'll slap some sense into you!"
"Don't talk foolish, Dick," Eddie said getting up. Miller wasn't really a bad guy, he probably thought he was doing him a favor by giving him a hard time. Since he made foreman he'd gotten the idea that he should be treated like a little tin god. It was too long since he'd been told to go to hell, that was his trouble.
Everybody in the bar was quiet as they watched Eddie. He hated backing down like this in front of everybody. It would be easy, too easy, to take Miller. That wouldn't solve anything, it'd just make things worse. He walked past Miller.
"You're like all these young punks nowadays, Eddie. Big talk but yellow inside," Miller's voice taunted him from behind.
That was a little too much to take. Whirling around, Eddie took a quick step forward and lashed out with a left hook that knocked Miller back against the bar. Miller was pretty tough, though and he came back at Eddie.
It was a mistake.
While Miller had a little weight on his side, Eddie had youth and experience. There's a world of difference between a bar-room fighter and a trained boxer, as Eddie demonstrated. Miller swung a round-house right from the heels that missed by a good foot. While he was still off balance, Eddie tore into his body with both hands then moved in with an upper-cut that caught him right on the point of the chin.
Miller went down like a half-empty sack of coal collapsing to the floor.
Shaking his head over Miller's foolishness, Eddie walked through the opening that the onlookers made for him, took a tooth-pick from the glass near the cashier and left. Too bad Miller had been so mule-headed. At least he hadn't hurt him too much.
There wasn't any sense in his staying in Stubbin's Corner anymore. The town was finished for him. He had been kind of foolish to even come back. Hell, who'd want to live in a jerk-water town like this after traveling around the world and living in New York? That's where he'd head now, the big town.
There still was the little problem of what he was going to do. He couldn't see hanging around Selma's place, loafing. He'd have to get some kind of job, but he hated the idea of joining the swarms of people riding the subway every day back in the city. Miller might have a point there. What was it he said? Something about Eddie not being able to get a job unless he went to sea.
Eddie stopped short and laughed aloud. God damn it, that was it! Miller had given him the answer. He'd go back to sea!
Not back to the Navy, the hell with that. The merchant marine was what he wanted. A civilian sailor, the best of all possible worlds. Being a quartermaster had never bothered Eddie, it was all the crap that he had to put up with after duty that bugged him. Damn, it'd be good to be at the helm of a ship again! Good old Miller! He'd have to send him a bottle of hooch later on.
Of course, getting a berth might be pretty hard, he'd have to start in as an ordinary seaman. But the difficulties didn't matter. The only thing that counted was that he had a direction to aim for now, he wasn't just waiting for something to happen to him.
When he got home he packed his gear. He was just finished when the phone rang and his father answered it. Then his father came into his room and started berating him for slugging his brother-in-law.
"Take it easy, Pa," Eddie said, picking up his gear. "Dick ain't hurt bad, he'll be all right. Tell him I'm sorry I hit him and that I'm taking his advice."
"Hey, wait a second. Where are you going?"
"I'll let you know when I get there, Pa," Eddie said, walking out of the house. It was a four-block walk to the railroad station and the six forty-five was just pulling in when he got there. It left, cutting in towards the Hudson River valley and heading for New York and the ocean, with Eddie aboard. The train pulled into Grand Central after midnight, he felt as if he were back home again.
Lugging his stuff to the subway, he took a downtown train to West Fourth Street. He didn't know how Selma would take his coming back after running out on her the way he did but he felt pretty certain that he'd be able to make her come along to his way of thinking. What had she said? They were the same kind of people. They could look at something and see how it really was without having to kid themselves about it.
It was awkward, dragging his luggage up the narrow stairs, but he finally got it in front of her door. He started to knock when suddenly the thought came to him that she might have another guy in there. She had told him before that she slept around a lot, and he sure as hell hadn't bothered about being faithful to her. Of course, that was different, somehow.
Face dark with anger, he rapped the door, thinking that if some clown was in there with her, there damn well might be another murder in the building..
Selma opened the door, dressed in the same outfit she was wearing the first time he had seen her.
"Oh, it's you," she said, without enthusiasm.
"Take off the chain and let me in."
"So you decided ; come back?" she asked, flipping the door chain off.
"Yeah, for good, this time," he said, walking in and looking around. The couch was up and it was pretty obvious that there wasn't a man in the place. Satisfied, he went out and started bringing in his luggage.
"For good? What's that mean?" she asked, leaning against the wall with arms akimbo.
"Just what it sounds like."
"You must be drunk. Hear about your buddy?"
"Yeah, I just read about Chuck today. You involved in any of the trouble?"
"No, thank God! I was just coming down the street when they shot him. I didn't even know who it was till I got back to the house and they told me. What a mess that was. The cops were questioning everybody in the building about it."
"Poor Chuck! You know what his trouble was, Selma? He didn't have enough sense to grab what he wanted. He kept looking for something perfect but all the time he knew that nothing was perfect, so he let it go."
"You sound very philosophical tonight, Eddie."
"I've been riding a train since seven and thinking. I'm not going to make Chuck's mistake, Selma. I know what I want and I'm going to get it and keep it. You. I want you and I'm going to marry you. We're the same sort of people."
"What? Are you crazy."
"Maybe. That doesn't matter, though. I'm still going to marry you. We need each other."
He started advancing on her while she backed away from him along the wall.
"But-but, Eddie, we have to be practical about this. Why, you don't even have a job!"
"I'll get one. I'm going back to sea."
"The Navy?" She was up against the couch now, couldn't go any further. Putting both arms around her, lie kissed her lightly on the lips before he answered.
"No, civilian ships. I've decided to try to get into the merchant marine."
"But, Eddie, don't you see how crazy this is," she said, trying to ignore the way he was fondling her body. "A sailor and an artist getting married! Do you know what the odds against that working out would be?"
"Listen, Selma. Everything worth a damn in this world has the odds against it. If people had been worrying about odds, the human race'd have died out long ago."
"But Eddie-"
By this time he had found the buckle of her pants and had pulled them down to her knees. Holding her in his arms, he lowered her to the couch, unbuttoned her shirt and terminated the conversation.
